Chunin Exam Day
by Perfect Lionheart
Summary: Naruto finds he is flung back in time and must repeat the entire Chunin exam over and over and over, until he gets it right and possibly saves Konoha in the bargain.
1. Chapter 1

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter One

by Lionheart

I I I

Nothing post-timeskip applies. It never happened, it will never happen, and the junk Bakamoto made up about rules of how this or that worked do not apply.

Kishimoto started with a good concept, then turned his own series into crap.

It makes me wonder if he knows Rowling on a social basis.

I I I

It was the worst day for Konoha since the Kyubi attack, the invasion by the Hidden Villages of Sand and Sound.

Everything was chaos. Caught off guard and admittedly soft from years of peace, the people of Konoha were unprepared to be stabbed in the back by an allied village, or for the destructive return of one of their most powerful missing ninja, arriving at the head of a new band of followers.

Into this opening, Orochimaru stabbed, gutting the village that was once his home, using his own Sound shinobi and deceived Sand ninja to sew destruction and chaos among his former friends and neighbors.

Death and destruction was everywhere. It wasn't quite the end of the village hidden among the leaves, they would, in the normal course of events, throw off the attack and survive. But they would be weakened for some time to come, losing precious prestige and influence that cost them almost as dearly as the defending ninja who died that day.

But something happened Orochimaru did not intend. While he was attacking his former teacher, intending to kill Sarutobi, the Hokage of Konoha, a young boy sheathed in the red aura of the Kyubi attacked the barrier his faithful Sound Four had erected around the two to isolate their epic battle.

Thus begins our story.

I I I

"Ugh," Naruto groaned, turning over in bed. The whiskered blond boy blinked twice, coming more awake as he realized something. The last thing he remembered was charging at that wall of blue light, whatever it was, trying to get to the old man, to save him from whatever that long-necked guy was doing.

He remembered hitting that screen, and then... nothing, just waking up here.

Surprisingly, the young boy did not feel as awful as he somehow expected to. His body was fine, although his mind was decidedly not. There was an odd mix in there of the afterimage of the worst headache of his life, and a strange sort of tiredness, just like he was exhausted after a hard day, ready for a full night of sleep instead of getting up from one.

So, deciding that since no one would need him for anything after the fight the other day he could get away with taking a sick day, he rolled over and went right back to sleep, so tired that he didn't even pause to wonder about how the old man Hokage did in that fight the boy had tried interrupting.

A few hours later his nap got interrupted, first by loud banging on his door, which he ignored by rolling over, then...

"NARUTO!" Sakura slammed open his unlocked door (the lock was broken, like almost everything else in the boy's run down apartment), eyes wild with rage and her aura actually visible, so lost to her temper that she actually looked more like Inner Sakura for once.

Before the boy had a chance to sit up, blink, and wipe at the corner of his eye mumbling a puzzled, "Sakura-chan?" his teammate had stormed into the apartment and turned over his bed, flipping him out onto the ground in a pile of not so clean blankets and sheets.

He got as far as blinking, sitting up from his new position, and muttering a puzzled "Saku..." before the pink demon of fury had hauled him to his feet by the front of his nightclothes and was shouting into his face.

"JUST WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, SLEEPING IN TODAY OF ALL DAYS?"

Waking up at last, the demon container wiped his eyes, unperturbed by her anger. Sakura was always angry at him, though today she seemed more than usual. "Oy, Sakura-chan," he mumbled into her glazed fury. "Did I miss something?"

"YOU MADE US MISS OUT ON ENTERING THE CHUNIN EXAMS!" she shrieked into his face, shaking him feebly. As the rage induced adrenalin left her weak limbs she dropped her hold on the boy's clothes.

Mortified, the Kyubi container saw tear tracks coming down from her eyes as Sakura teared up once more. "Sasuke-kun was so disappointed!"

Naruto bounced back to his feet again. "Oy, Sakura-cha..."

She pierced him with a gaze a pure, unadulterated hatred, stopping his attempt at apology and request for what she was talking about in its tracks. "DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME THAT AGAIN UZUMAKI-BAKA!" the preteen girl shouted in his face, tears flying as she mixed both grief and anger. "IN FACT, DON'T EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN!"

And with that, she fled crying from his room and his house, leaving the young boy in total puzzlement over her behavior, while her inner-Sakura was doing flips and handstands over how much her Sasuke-kun would appreciate her punishing Naruto-baka for disappointing them!

Head still aching and still tired, though not as much, but no longer disposed to sleep, Naruto started puzzling over her inexplicable behavior while he went about his morning routine.

He was just coming out of the shower, having come up with no answers nor anything he'd done to upset her lately, when he stepped out, wearing a towel, only to see Sasuke standing there in his hallway, glaring at him in rage.

Ignoring the anger as he always did, Naruto raised a hand and greeted his teammate happily. "Oy, Sasuke-teme, what's up?"

His answer came in the form of one of the best right hooks the Last Uchiha had ever thrown.

Not even remotely expecting it, Naruto put up no resistance when his fellow member of Team 7 beat him to within an inch of his life. The loudmouthed blond boy had NEVER been subject to so much violence from this boy, who he'd often considered a friend, even a brother, and caught between his initial surprise and trying to keep his towel on, didn't put up too much of a fight.

Finally, the brooding avenger wore his arms out and left without once having said a word the entire visit, his knuckles split and bleeding, toes sore from too much kicking, and annoyed that Naruto had absorbed it all without dying.

Naruto was left laying there on his floor in shock. Oh, the cuts and bruises went away so quickly he'd been healed of some before the others had fallen, but the shock of the brutality of the attack had left him astonished, and he lay there coming to grips with it.

Sasuke-teme had done everything sort of drawing weapons or using jutsu on him! He'd never once seen him that angry! And Sakura-chan, too! What was up with them?

What had he missed by sleeping in one day?

Glancing at a clock, the village pariah rubbed at sores on the back of his head in confusion. Heck! Kakashi-sensei shouldn't even be to the group's regular meeting spot yet!

What could have gotten them so upset?

As if to answer his unspoken question, the rookie genin turned around and saw their teacher there, leaning against a wall in Naruto's hallway, his nose stuck deep in that orange-covered book he always carried.

"Oy! Kakashi-sensei!" the battered blond dove forward, scrambling closer on his hands and knees, trying to get some answers, only to be stopped by a hostile gaze once again.

There was anger there, but mostly disappointment, through there was also some disgust, which, while Naruto was used to being ignored by his teacher, having his sensei be disgusted by him was a whole new realm of hurt.

Kakashi snapped his book shut, uncoiling slowly to face his blue eyed student. "Naruto, you greatly disappointed your team today. I'd thought better of you. For a while I thought you understood how your role is to support your teammates. I was counting on you to be there to hold them together, so Sasuke could climb higher. Now you have failed when they needed you the most, and I can see that I made a mistake in letting you graduate."

And with that the jonin vanished in a swirl of leaves.

The much abused Naruto was nearly in tears from these repeated shocks, coming one after another. Suddenly he couldn't bear to be in his apartment anymore. It was the source of too much recent pain. Throwing on his clothes over still healing bruised flesh, he got out of there and began to walk around the city aimlessly, no real purpose or place to go.

I I I

It was a bright, sunny day outside, one filled with many happy people. With the many visitors to town here for the chunin exam, more crowds were out than usual to see the strange new faces and wonder at their guests.

It was a happy town, a joyful one (well, when Naruto wasn't around anyway. He still got hateful glares wherever he went), but more importantly, it was a peaceful town.

Even Naruto started to notice changes right away, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was he was noticing until he came upon one of the ninja he'd seen killed. It was a Konoha nin, and Naruto knew nothing about him, not even his name. They were not even acquaintances, however, he HAD seen the man die in gory and messy ways, then his body laying slumped on the ground.

It had been a particularly graphic and unmistakable death, even for ninja. It was for that reason that it had stood out among so many, and a big part of why he'd remembered it.

Startled by seeing that man alive, Naruto started looking around and saw that none of the other damage was visible. That had been a tremendous fight that had brought Konoha to its knees, the battle had scarred the entire town as jutsu wielding ninja fought across the whole length and breadth of it... yet everything looked just fine.

If there had been a battle here, there certainly was no trace of it.

But how could that be? He'd been there during that battle, he KNEW it had happened! Naruto puzzled til his puzzler was sore, but he could not make any sense of it. He knew, he KNEW that those things had happened, but...

All of those thoughts fled his mind as he dismissed them, having seen a person who could probably tell him what was up with Sakura-chan. "Oy! Ino! Wait up!" And the orange-clad boy ran over to where the blonde girl had been walking along proudly with her team.

Fresh from the tests, and flush with their own success, Ino turned to face her caller simply radiating confidence... at least until she recognized who it was. Then a thin layer of anger overlaid her confidence. "Naruto!" she snapped, before the boy could get a word in edgewise. "How dare you show your face after disappointing Sasuke-kun that way!"

The boy scraped to a halt and rubbed his cheek. "Ino, what are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes. "Today was the first test of the CHUNIN EXAM, moron! Did you just forget to show up? Sasuke-kun wasn't able to take the test since his whole team wasn't there to support him! You are holding him back! Hmph! Maybe he should find himself another teammate, or a better team."

Ino turned her nose up, gave a disdainful sniff, and turned away, walking off with Team 10 trailing along in her wake.

Naruto just stood there looking gobsmacked.

"But... wasn't that a month ago?" he mumbled.

Now Konoha's pariah had long ago developed an iron-hard skull, bull-headed determination being his sole survival tool in a village that hated him. Having been sabotaged by teachers and scorned by all who knew him, he had learned to dismiss anything he could not understand, as there was no person he could go to regularly to explain them or help him figure them out, and all too many people who'd be willing to deliberately add to his confusion. So, since most puzzles had no solution, at least to him, he'd learned to simply throw them out so he didn't waste any mental effort worrying about them.

Still, as much as he tried to, today's events were a bit of a strain for him to just pass off as nothing.

So it was that Naruto found his feet guiding him to the one place he could always count on for help explaining things he couldn't understand. The Hokage could not spare time to teach him all of the time, but he was the kid's one source of trustworthy information on things he couldn't otherwise understand; the only one before graduation who'd ever explain things to him.

So he tromped into the Hokage's office and shot an arm up high. "Oy! Old man! How did your fight with snake-face go? I didn't see the end of it!"

Sarutobi took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at the boy in confusion. He'd been expecting Naruto to begin pleading and whining over his failure at the chunin entrance exam, not this. He'd already prepared a speech where he denied the boy a second chance to take this test, telling him how another six month wait would build his skills and character. Instead, Naruto seemed not to care at all.

Then his question hit.

"I'm sorry, Naruto. I've not seen Orochimaru in many years." The Hokage tapped ash out of his pipe in confusion over how that question had come out of the boy's mouth.

"Huh?" Naruto opened his eyes wide to blink in confusion of his own, then he stamped a foot down hard, forming a fist. "Don't lie to me, old Man! I saw you fighting him yesterday! He was there, all wiggly and with that long-neck thing of his! You'd gotten trapped in this big, blue box and he'd gotten these guys growing trees and stuff inside while you summoned a monkey!"

Laying the pipe aside, Sarutobi carefully looked over the youngster. "I'm sorry, Naruto. But I do not use my summons lightly, and there are no publicly known users of the wood techniques who remain in Konoha. The last was our First Hokage. So I would have known of any such goings on. You must have heard stories before having quite an interesting dream."

"Could it all have been just a dream?" the boy wondered, scratching his head. Then his eyes widened in horror. "But that means I missed my chance to become a chunin! Aw! What a day to sleep in!"

Sarutobi chuckled. "Don't take it so hard, Naruto. In another six months you may get another chance. You are still young, there are many opportunities before you. I'll tell you what," he took out a slip of paper and began to write a note. "Take this to Ebisu, he is a special jonin who teaches only the best. This will instruct him to teach you a jutsu."

Numbly, Naruto accepted the paper and the accompanying instructions on how to find the special jonin, then went off to find him. Having already objected once to this instructor, then failed to win in a contest in support of those objections, Naruto did not complain about having Ebisu as a teacher. They had begun the water walking training together, which had turned out to be useful. Besides, the boy's mind was numb from repeated shocks, so for once he simply did as he was told and sought out the older man.

Sarutobi, watching in his crystal ball, was shocked by this behavior. Meek acceptance was not often a part of Naruto's character. So the Hokage supposed having lost his chance at the chunin exam had hurt the boy worse than he'd thought.

The demon container tracked down his new teacher in the forests around the training grounds, spending some time doing so as he had to find exactly where he was. There, he simply presented the note, and proceeded to stand there obeying wordlessly as Ebisu instructed him to do this, do that, lift one foot, assume taijutsu stances, and then finally list off the jutsus he already knew.

"Body Switch, Transformation, Sexy, Shadow Clone, Harem techniques..." the boy replied woodenly, still in shock over it all, and forgetting to put toad summoning on his list.

Ebisu sniffed disdainfully. "Two of those are useless, and the others are all basic, except for the Shadow Clone technique. You do not even say you have the basic Clone technique, so you fail to master the essential three. Still," the man pushed his small glasses back up his nose as he gazed off to the horizon proudly. "I suppose Shadow Clone makes up the difference enough for you to be considered a rookie genin. But you are nowhere close to being chunin material!"

"Yah, yah, just teach me something, already." Naruto started to pick his nose, staring at the instructor sullenly, already tired of being yelled at. He'd already had enough of that for one day.

Ebisu crossed his arms and gave him a dismissive snort. "Harrumph! Go walk up that tree!" he pointed.

Naruto did so.

"Heh, your chakra control is pathetic! Go walk on that stream!" Ebisu ordered, pointing again.

Naruto did so.

"Wasteful! You use a hundred times the chakra that you need. Float that leaf above your palm!" the special jonin ordered.

"What are you talking about?" the sullen genin groused.

Smiling that he had found something easy to teach the young boy, Ebisu then started to explain the leaf floating exercise for training in chakra control, which he left Naruto to perform for the rest of that day.

Late evening, finishing off with a dinner consisting of an enormous amount of ramen, the village pariah concluded what had on the whole been a very stressful and unproductive day, and went back to bed with most of his questions still unresolved, already long into the process of forgetting them altogether.

Waking up early the next morning, Naruto blearily went through his ordinary routine before heading out to the forest to continue his training with the leaf floating thing.

He'd been at it several hours, without much success, when all of a sudden he was lifted up by the throat by an angry Sakura who was practically breathing flames as she shouted, "NARUTO! JUST WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, GOOFING OFF TODAY OF ALL DAYS?"

"Huh, wha... Sakura-cha..." his head was suddenly ringing as she'd just dropped and slapped him.

"DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME THAT AGAIN UZUMAKI-BAKA!" she shouted. "IN FACT, DON'T EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN! YOU MADE US MISS OUT ON ENTERING THE CHUNIN EXAMS!"

"But... but, I thought that was yesterday..." he puzzled, already confused as the half-dismissed questions from yesterday returned, full force, to his mind.

Sakura just slapped him again as her answer, before stomping off, sure of the justice in her righteous fury, and that Sasuke-kun would be so happy that she'd helped punish Naruto for disappointing them like that!

The blond boy she'd left behind just stared after her in confusion, clutching the hand shaped red mark on his cheek.

Moments later, turning to face another sound he'd only just heard, the confused blond called out, "Oy, Sasuke-teme, what's up?"

This time the right hook wasn't entirely unexpected.

When Kakashi came and broke up their fight, he gave Naruto a silent yet withering glare, then took the Last Uchiha away for private training.

Naruto stumbled into town in a daze, found Ino with her team where he'd last met her, received the exact same treatment and response, and wandered in even more confusion up to the Hokage's office, where Sarutobi once more took pity on the boy and gave him a note for Ebisu.

The special jonin was able to give him several pointers on his leaf floating technique, and after another day of training Naruto went to bed one very confused boy.

I I I

"Oy, Saku... eh, Haruno-san," Naruto called out weakly, giving a half hearted wave to his pink haired teammate as she came skipping up to greet Sasuke.

Sakura gave him a look filled with confusion that he'd switch from his usual intimate form of address to something so formal, but quickly figuring that if he was going to stop bothering her with his clumsy and unwanted crush, that was all to the good as it made it clearer to Sasuke-kun that he had no rivals for her affection, the pink haired kunoichi accepted the change in address and went to babble to her other teammate, leaving Naruto out in the cold, so to speak.

The boy she was ignoring felt so confused he didn't know where to start! He felt burned enough by the one bad experience to not want to sleep in, and just confused enough by the other to check in at the testing center before he went off to train; and to his surprise, all of the chunin hopefuls were gathering for a chance to take the first test!

Naruto had a deeply ingrained aversion to thinking. Thinking about why the villagers hated him only made it hurt more. Thinking about problems when no one would ever give him an answer just got him more confused. But here was something he could not ignore, and it was driving him crazy!

Happy to dismiss it all in spite of that, the blond boy followed his two other teammates into the building, where there was a group of disguised chunins standing by a door under an illusion, trying to turn the test hopefuls away.

The boy watched, awestruck, as the fight between Lee and Sasuke happened once more, exactly as before, as the bushy-browed boy tried again (for the first time?) to prove that hard work could beat a genius.

The Uzumaki boy followed in an ever increasing stupor as events turned out the same as before until they reached the testing room. This time he was in far too much of a haze to call out his challenge to the room, but still the silver haired, glasses wearing Konoha genin came up to offer them advice, and the rush attack from the Sound genin happened just as before, with Naruto staring at it all as a dumbstruck witness, too shocked to move.

By the time Ibiki came out and they all had the exact same seats as before, the demon container could no longer stand it. Standing up on his chair and placing one foot on his desk, he pointed to the head examiner and shouted, "You bastard! Nobody has to write down anything to pass this test! You've got it rigged so that anyone who agrees to take the tenth question wins!"

Ibiki, while both surprised and fuming inside, kept a calm facade as he looked down on his notebook and shouted a terse, "Team 7 - fail."

Naruto was still staring dumbly as the assistant examiners took him by the arms, dragged him to the doors, and threw him out. He was barely listening as Sakura shrieked, almost blowing out his eardrums, that if he'd learned something secret about the tests he should have kept quiet about it and not gotten them thrown out!

Sasuke bruised his feet and hurt his knuckles trying to give his unresponsive rival another beating.

Kakashi let it happen. Then he had a few words to say, adding his own lecture about keeping secret information secret so you could use it to your advantage - and NOT blurting it out in public so it couldn't do you any good.

Still, at least this time Kakashi was a bit amused on top of his anger at Naruto for getting his team thrown out of the exams.

Naruto was still gulping like a goldfish by the time they left him alone.

"Everything..." he finally whispered, long after he was all alone. "Everything is the same... nothing changes..."

Then he grew a wide, prankster grin, and his eyes came alight for the first time in days. "Unless I change it."

He went off to see the Hokage and, sure enough, after trying and failing to explain what was going on to the one man he trusted most of all, he got another letter to Ebisu, who further refined his leaf floating technique with a few more helpful suggestions.

With help like this he'd soon get it down.

The boy was chuckling madly as he went back to sleep.

I I I

"Oy! Sakura-chan!" Naruto called out happily, greeting his team in a new morning while standing in front of the testing center as all of the chunin hopefuls entered. His hair was washed and he had on his best outfit. "Glad to see you decided to come!"

"Well, I wasn't about to disappoint Sasuke-kun!" the pink haired fangirl cried, rushing over to the object of her obsession to fawn over the brooding Uchiha.

At first Naruto frowned, as that snub had hurt. Then he quickly smiled again, rubbing the back of his head while chuckling, before adopting a very obvious sly expression. "Say, Sakura-chan, why do you like Sasuke so much?"

"Why? WHY?" Sakura shrieked, before bonking the blond on the head. "Why do you have to ask such a stupid question? He's a strong ninja, the top of his class! You think I'd go for a dead-last like you when I could have someone like him?" Suddenly she was back by the Uchiha's side, trying to take his arm so she could guide him into the center. "Come along Sasuke-kun! We wouldn't want to be late for the test!"

Grumbling and rubbing his head, Naruto followed them inside.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

First off, I'm just plain TIRED of reading fanfiction, particularly Naruto fanfiction, where non-Japanese speakers show off their ability to quote Japanese words from their textbooks, and that practically insist on making you learn Japanese in order to understand it. There will be no Japanese words used if I can find an English equivalent. Do a search and replace if it annoys you that much.

An exception will be made for certain name suffixes sometimes, as I feel those are easy and contain useful information. But I am NOT going to stress about using them right or often. On the other hand, words like 'ninja' have been borrowed for so long they are effectively English.

Secondly, Naruto's team were a little harsh on him, yes. My reasons for that? Well, as with any time-loop scenario, you've got to have problems to fix. So, in light of that, the reactions of Naruto's teammates may have been a little extreme, and they needed to be. However, in my mind none of them were out of character. Giving Naruto grief for a major disappointment? Oh yeah! But they all planned to make it up to him later, after he'd learned his lesson and suffered a bit. It's just that, in a repeating time loop, later never arrives.

To put it another way, we have a fairly simple "Bump, Set, Spike" routine going on here.

To Bump, you interrupt the course the story was originally taking. It's purpose is to give the character a "Wait a minute! I didn't like that! Something's got to change!" moment, and yes, the PURPOSE of those is to be unpleasant!

That's why they make a character want to change them.

To Set, you redirect whatever random course you got out of your bump into a positive course of action. The 'Aha!' moment that resolves the confusion and sets you up for the beginning of your plan, which is, sadly, all we were able to get to in this first chapter.

Then the Spike, which is your payload, where all of the good points come from, and really where you want to get as quickly as possible. Not so quickly as to make the story unbelievable, however.

And as far as him training with Ebisu, yes, it is impossible to effect any physical change across the resets. You can even die, in such a situation, and wake up unchanged the next morning. However, for purposes of this story, chakra CONTROL is purely mental. Chakra itself has both mental and physical components, and let's be honest here, Naruto has frigging enormous body energy (amazing healing and hyperactive, etc) and practically zero mental (he has a surprisingly good brain, which intentionally or otherwise he has been conditioned not to use). So he'll even be able, potentially, to shoot his chakra capacity up to even more surreal levels, just by training up his mental side.

As for techniques, things like shooting fireballs or teleporting from place to place, those are all learned skills, and as such he can acquire them. On the other hand, armed and unarmed combat are almost as much about reflexes as anything, which the body cannot carry over. So while Naruto can do himself some good there, do not expect miracles. Lastly, things like speed and brawn, endurance and toughness, which are pure physical conditioning, he won't be able to acquire at all in a time loop scenario. He's stuck with what he's got as far as those are concerned. So he could lift all of the weights in the world and it would not help him.


	2. Chapter 2

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Two

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto was often a study in opposites. Though he could be dense at times, he was also capable of feats of amazing brilliance. The chief difference was the amount of encouragement he got.

At the ninja academy his teachers had outright sabotaged his progress. The village shops sold him the worst quality gear for premium prices, and in all other ways did their level best to hinder his progress. On the other hand...

The one time he'd felt a teacher was going out of his way to help him, Naruto had performed the mission he'd asked of him flawlessly, and learned a jonin level jutsu in a matter of hours. When he'd thought his team was counting on him, he'd participated substantially in the defeat of an A-rank missing ninja. He'd learned water walking in spite of having Orochimaru's extra seal messing up his already pathetic chakra control, and...

It was like magic. When people believed in him, he performed. It was that simple. He'd learn at rates the legendary Sannin couldn't believe, if only someone would give him a chance and a little bit of direction.

And right now he was bored, sitting through the written test portion of the chunin exam. The head examiner was trying to pour on the pressure, but Naruto already knew the secret of this test: Anyone who agreed to take the final question won. So why bother stressing about the other answers?

On the other hand, Hinata, the girl who sat to his right, was fretting visibly over his complete lack of concern for doing any work on the problems on the paper. Having already finished herself, her bloodline having gotten all of the answers for her, once again she whispered, "Naruto-kun, you can copy mine." and slid her paper discretely over to help him read her answers.

The blond in question blinked at the ordinarily shy girl, stuttering out her offer to let him cheat, using her exam as an answer key. He relaxed as it struck him this was the second time she'd made that offer. He'd only turned down the first because he could sense one of the test proctors had noticed.

Taking his feet off of the desk, where he'd been kicking back, loafing around, waiting for the test to be over, the boy leaned forward and whispered back. "Eh, er..." he glanced down at her paper and read off her name, "Hinata-chan, why would you do something like that?"

The girl blushed, cringing slightly away from him as she answered his question. "Na... Naruto-kun..." she stammered, "...the test... it is important that you pass it..."

"Team 7 - fail! Team 8 - fail!" one of the proctors called off, and to his surprise Naruto found himself once more ushered out of the building, this time with his angry team accompanied by Hinata and hers, as well, although the latter seemed more confused about how they had been caught than angry. They were experts at information gathering, and had that whole test in the bag, every one of them.

That was, Kiba and Shino, Hinata's teammates, were confused until Sakura started to yell at Naruto for whispering to Hinata during a monitored test and getting them all thrown out. That was worth some angry grumbling from Kiba and a very stiff stance from Shino, while Hinata blushed and rubbed her fingers together in the shame of it all.

Naruto felt bad for the girl, so after Sasuke's attempts to plaster him were broken up by Kakashi, he went off to find her, but Hinata and her team had disappeared somewhere.

Nothing left to do, Naruto went for another visit to the old man, and got another letter to Ebisu, where the special jonin gave him a few more tips on the leaf floating exercise, and a comment about how he wasn't as lackluster as the teacher had suspected, given what he'd already heard of him.

Another full day training on chakra control, and it was off to bed for Naruto.

I I I

Two more repeats of that day had Hinata offering to help him each time. It was driving Naruto to distraction, as he'd finally noticed how much it upset the girl to see him not filling in those blanks.

The thing was, she actually seemed to care about him passing the test!

One of those contrasts about Naruto was that, while he could be a surprising blockhead and amazingly unobservant at times, at others he could also switch that around and notice things that no one else did - like his pointing out that Lee had bandages over his hands not as a fashion statement, but because his knuckles were split and sore from constant training, something that neither of his teammates had picked up on at the time.

Now, stuck in this time loop, it was easy to focus in on small things. Heck! He could hardly HELP but do so! Since his efforts to get Sakura to divulge the secret as to why she thought Sasuke was so awesome were turning up nothing useful, he was beginning to notice other things.

In the stress of his first time through this test, he'd not paid too much attention to Hinata's offer of help, and afterward he'd almost forgotten about it completely in the flush of success at passing. However, out of her repeated attempts to help, and his total lack of stress, knowing he did not need it to pass, caused him to become fully aware of something.

She genuinely seemed to want to help.

There were maybe, MAYBE three others who'd ever just wanted to help him for the sake of helping him. and what's more he could see the girl suffering as she did so - this mattered to her.

Why, he had no idea, but this was the third time in a row now, and he figured it was not some trifling detail. Actually, his eyes teared up as her genuine offer of help finally penetrated as a real attempt to help him. This was not some random Konoha ninja assisting another in need, she wanted to help him, HIM! The dead last of the academy, the hated Uzumaki, the demon container of the nine tailed demon fox, HIM!

He actually wept out loud and got them all thrown out again.

I I I

The next day Naruto skipped out on greeting Sakura, giving her a brief wave as he sought for the shy girl who kept giving up her own chance at success to help him.

Not finding her at once, he decided to throw caution to the wind and blitzed the whole area with Shadow Clones, hundreds of copies of himself going all over until they spotted the distinctive shy girl, who'd already gone past him and into the building.

Sprinting to catch up to her so he could speak to her before the test and tell her not to worry, his clones got caught up in among the other genin and lost her. That led to a scuffle that nearly got him thrown out before the test, and Sakura only dragged him in at the last minute by his ear, ending up out of the place he'd always used in the line to receive seat numbers, and he wasn't even next to Hinata that time.

Thinking he had it made, the orange clad genin kicked back, put his feet up, and waited out the test... only to have Sakura opt out when Ibiki called for those who didn't want to take the tenth question!

Naruto slapped himself in the face, having forgotten how stressed they'd all been that first time. He'd forgotten all about how Sakura had nearly dropped them all out so she could save his dream of being Hokage!

Sasuke was coldly furious with the girl, saying some very hard and harsh things that probably ruined her dreams forever, except that she would recall none of it tomorrow.

Naruto felt terrible about it all.

Sighing, he left to go see the Hokage, got his letter, and went to meet Ebisu, no longer having to look around for him, going right to where the man was.

After five days of studying that leaf floating thing with Ebisu, the special jonin had actually unknowingly passed him off on that, concluding that of the three basic chakra control exercises, leaf floating, tree climbing and water walking, his tree walking was the worst and giving him some hints as to how to do it better, he'd left him to practice those all day, because the outcast youth needed better chakra control more than anyone.

Ebisu was still haranguing Naruto that his basics were all out of whack. Of course, the special jonin had no idea that he'd been giving him that speech day after day for most of a week now. So he also had no idea how much improvement the blond genin had been making during that period.

Of course, that was in chakra control alone, but that was still his worst area. But, when he had actual instruction instead of being ignored or ridiculed, the boy shone, accelerating at an amazing pace, so those extra tips were making a big difference, even though they seemed small to Ebisu.

The next day Naruto made a careful note to give to Hinata before he even left his apartment. In it, he explained that he didn't need to write anything down to pass the test, so not to worry. Spamming the world with Naruto clones, the lad was able to spot Hinata before she entered the building, and the real one ran up to her and shouting, "Here!" shoved the note into her hands.

He stood there grinning, sure this would solve everything, until his expression faltered. His grin slipped as he watched Hinata, holding the envelope with her name on it and staring at him, have all of the blood drain out of her face, tremble, then fall over backward in a faint.

Kiba, her teammate, caught her.

"What! what? What happened to her!" Naruto pointed, already panicking as Kiba scowled up at him.

"Stupid!" Sakura hit him on the back of his head. "She fainted! You go right up to a shy girl that's got a crush on you and give her a love note in front of everybody, and that's what happens!"

"Love note? Crush?" Naruto tried anxiously to process those words as he rubbed his head. Then he broke out into a wide grin. "You mean she likes me? Like a boyfriend?"

"Duh!" Sakura hit him again, annoyed at this display of stupidity. "Don't play dumb on me! Why else would you give a love note to her? It's not like anyone else would do anything but laugh at you. She's got to be the only girl on this PLANET that would go out with you! She's had a crush on you since we were all in the academy together! Don't tell me you never noticed."

Kiba, by now, had looked away, hiding his anger at Sakura's words. But Naruto was glowing like the sun with a big, toothy grin. That was, until Hinata stirred a second later, whereupon she opened the note with a shy look of eager joy on her face, only to be crushed moments later when she read it.

Naruto himself felt like the worst sort of heel imaginable as he saw her disappointment upon realizing that it wasn't a love note after all. Kiba helped her up, and the glare he gave Naruto as he helped the broken girl past spoke of his anger at Uzumaki for causing all this.

Things then got worse as Hinata started to cry, sparing the boy she loved in vain one last pain-filled glance before rushing off to find privacy, the non-love note still clutched in a crumpled ball to her chest as she ran off.

Naruto was left feeling like all of those villagers' glares of hatred had been right all along. He stood there, shoulders slumped, feeling like the worst sort of scum in the universe, all of his previous good feelings coming to crash down and burn on top of him.

Sakura stood with him for a time, actually feeling some empathy, until Sasuke came to drag them all in. Hinata's team didn't come in to take the test, and Naruto almost didn't care when Sakura gave up on the tenth question again.

Ebisu had him practice some refinements to his water walking this time.

I I I

Hinata had offered to help him, a thing few people had EVER offered to do! He could count those who had on one hand and still have fingers left over. That alone put her in a very special category.

She was a precious person automatically because of that attempt. He'd very carelessly ignored it before, but stuck in his face day after day it was no longer something he could avoid paying attention to, even by accident.

Now Sakura was saying that Hinata loved him, or at least liked him in a boy and girl kind of a way. Naruto had no idea how to respond to that. He had no idea how to start, even. He supposed he could write her an actual love note the next time, to make up for the hurt of this one, but... here the boy had to admit to himself that he had no idea what one of those would actually say!

He'd never seen one before.

Of course, he was Naruto "Tact, what is tact?" Uzumaki. So he did what no one else was likely to do, and approached her directly the next day, before the test, and declared, "Oy! Hinata-chan! I was going to write you a love note, but have no idea what they should say. Any idea what I should put in it?"

The poor Hyuga maid collapsed in an instant, blushing faint, and the crowds of collected genin broke out laughing.

"BAKA!" Naruto went down to twin thumps on the head from Sakura and Ino, who, after scolding him for being so tactless, dragged him off and gave him some basic 'how to' tips on the proper way to approach girls.

It was the first time he'd had any information on courtship whatsoever, and it surprised him no end how very detailed was the subject. "Hey! That's more complex than our academy lessons!" he objected, once they'd fully overloaded him with suggestions in their enthusiasm to correct his crudity.

"Just do it!" the two girls shouted, shoving him forward toward the Hyuga heiress, who by now had woken up and was being helped to her feet by Kiba.

"Uh, Hinata-chan," Naruto stuttered, coming to a stop before her and rubbing the back of his head, not looking directly at her. "Would you like to go eat with me, after the test?"

Softly glowing a rosy pearl color, Hinata blushed and nodded, not trusting her voice, rubbing her fingers together all the while. Kiba just snorted at this display.

This time the two genin teams walked together to the exam room, and Lee never made his attack on Sasuke. Slightly puzzled about that, Naruto got a new idea just as Kabuto was showing those ninja information cards of his, and asked, "Hey! What do those cards say about Hinata-chan?"

The silver haired genin gave him a sly look, and a glance over to Hinata, who was blushing up a storm, but the shinobi easily found their cards with the appropriate info. "Hmm, this is interesting. It looks like our little Hinata is heiress to the Hyuga clan, the most prestigious in Konoha after the Uchiha Massacre. And what is this? She was the subject of a kidnapping attempt when she was only six years old. The hidden village of Cloud tried to abduct her for her bloodline. Decent skill at the Gentle Fist style, and a surprising number of successful missions for a newly minted genin of her age."

Naruto's eyes were round as he looked over at the girl he'd always dismissed before, who was currently shrinking in on herself over all of the attention.

This time they passed the test beautifully. Hinata was so embarrassed by the attention and the way her Naruto-kun was looking at her, that she did not press it when he turned down her offer of help. Then, Naruto was feeling confident enough to shout down the instructor, as he'd done the first time, so Sakura-chan did not disqualify their team.

It was after that part of the test was over, Anko had come and gone and Hinata had left with her team, promising to meet him in an hour for lunch, that Naruto had an idea.

Hinata worried so much about him that they'd failed time and time again from her offering to help him. So he ought to do something about that, and there, right beside him, was her completed test answer sheet.

So, sliding it over, he began to copy it onto his.

The test was already over, and they'd all passed anyway. He didn't care about score or anything. No, this was his sneaky plan: by memorizing her answers, he could have something to write down the next day! That way she would not be so concerned about him passing!

He chuckled darkly until it was time for him to leave to go out to meet her for lunch.

I I I

Naruto generally had one goal in mind when food was placed before him and that was to satisfy his hunger. Consuming mass quantities was the goal, and doing so as quickly as possible - a habit he had picked up in his youth because of older kids who routinely stole his food. So he ate what he could get, as fast as he could get it, as a reflexive measure against that happening.

But it was more than a little horrifying to kunoichi with refined and delicate table manners.

Even Sakura, who had tagged along with Ino and a few other curious kunoichi to see this first date, and who could be called refined and delicate only in comparison to a gorilla, found herself appalled by the way Naruto ate. And she was NOT seeing it up close for the first time!

Hinata, on the other hand, was, and although she'd been looking forward to this date for as long as she could remember, was a bit pained and winced at the animalistic manner in which Naruto consumed his lunch.

Fortunately, he raised his food-covered muzzle to ask Hinata why she wasn't eating and caught her look of horrified chagrin. She tried to hide it, smiling weakly and picking up a morsel of her own meal, but her dismay was plain.

That was when Ino and Sakura decided to intervene, and both together leapt in and dragged him away for a quick, yet thorough, scolding about proper table manners, ending with, "... the way you eat reflects on how you feel about those around you! If you eat like an animal, you're saying that no one around you is worth being nice to! So eat like a gentleman, or else she'll think that she isn't important to you!"

Shoving him back at the table, Naruto tried to remember the information surge and pluck out the bits he needed to finish his meal. Hinata was nice about it, and plainly grateful that he cared enough to try and be better for the remainder of their meal together, but just as plainly he'd already ruined her dream date for her.

She left the table with polite thanks but unhappy looks, leaving Naruto alone to once again feel like a positive schmuck for upsetting her, especially as he was trying to be nice and make her feel better over an incident she could no longer recall, where he'd first screwed up with that note thing.

Now his resolve only crystallized and grew stronger. He WOULD make it up to Hinata! Both for the note misunderstanding, and for ruining this date!

I I I

The rest of that day passed rather unproductively. The old man wouldn't give him a letter to Ebisu, because he hadn't failed the chunin exam yet and so didn't need to be cheered up. When he sought out Ebisu on his own, the special jonin wouldn't teach him anything. So, frustrated, he went back to the Hokage and asked how you learned to eat so you didn't hurt a kunoichi's feelings.

Sarutobi was so surprised by the question he actually laughed out loud. Then he had to have a full explanation, of course. At the end of which, merrily smoking his pipe, the Hokage had suggested that if he wanted to learn how to impress a kunoichi, one of the best instructors for that they had was Kurenai, Hinata's jonin instructor.

He even wrote Naruto another letter of introduction.

The boy bounced merrily away to go find the jonin, which took a long time, but when he did she was a little unhappy with him, making him suspect she knew about his badly failed date with Hinata-chan. Still, she agreed to teach him all the same, but while the blond did his best to absorb what she said, the lecture Kurenai gave him was all way above his head, relying on him already understanding basic stuff he'd never heard of, and sounding about as complex as rocket science. It made the jonin-level Shadow Clone technique seem about as complicated as a line drawn in the sand.

What did it matter what clothes he wore? Or how he smelled? He smelled just fine, thank you, having already bathed today. Breath mints? Flowers? What did those matter?

Still, she said it was important, and the Hokage said she knew this subject better than anyone he had to teach him. It all seemed rather odd to him, though.

But the worst part was she'd loaded him with so many specifics when he had no idea of even the most simple basics. Stuff like how to smile and 'comport' himself. He had no idea how to smile, he just DID!

And all the stuff about fancy restaurants? He'd never been inside of a fancy restaurant in his life! They'd never let him in! He'd taken Hinata out to eat ramen at his favorite stand, just like he ate all of the time!

No, the talk with Kurenai only multiplied his confusion, and Naruto went to bed a very unhappy boy.

The next day found him up and already at the testing center before he realized that he was the only one there, none of the other chunin hopefuls had shown up at all, which blew his mind as he'd grown to expect it.

He waited for an hour before a hot-headed Sakura came back to scream and shout at him for not having been at the Forest of Death on time for their team to enter, and losing them their place in that test. Sasuke was even angrier with him than before, and Kakashi gave him that same "I'm disappointed, you should never have been allowed to graduate" lecture.

Confused and miserable, Naruto made his way over to talk to the Hokage, got a note to see Ebisu, and spent the rest of that day practicing chakra control.

The next day, he was up and all packed and ready to go to the Forest of Death, only to have Sakura seek him out a couple of hours later to shriek at him about missing their chance to take the written test, Sasuke came to try and beat him up later, and Kakashi gave the same speech over again. Then it was back to chakra control with Ebisu.

The next day, early in the morning, Naruto spammed clones all over Konoha to find out where everyone was gathering, and met them all at the exam center for the written test once again, same as always.

So why had that one morning been at the Forest of Death?

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Well, a hearty thanks to all of you who reviewed. I wish there were more but isn't that always the case?


	3. Chapter 3

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Three

by Lionheart

I I I

The orange-clad Uzumaki was very used to dealing with life by the seat of his pants, reacting to things as they came at him and living a life free of worries or concerns about trivial issues like tact and timing.

Well, guess what? That all came to a screeching halt as he discovered he was trapped in a time loop. It's difficult if not impossible for a person to have an unplanned reaction to something he knows is going to happen. Especially when it happens the same way over, and over, and over again.

Impulsive reactions don't happen anymore in that case.

Recklessly charging ahead filled with passion only worked when you could feel passion over something. Having seen the same thing happen countless times kinda took the bite out of it, and knowing that however it turned out made no difference in the morning make reckless fury and passion almost nonexistent no matter how willing you were to summon them.

No, it was the sort of situation that demanded carefully thought out plans, "When this happens I'll do that and see what happens" was the least of the strategies that could be employed to learn from the situation. Far more valuable was deciding what goal you wanted to pursue, then going for it.

Being caught in a situation where careful memorization and planning made the only difference was both torture for Naruto, and the best thing that could possibly happen to him, forcing him to put his disused mind to work and at the same time training him to effectively use it.

The demon container was, by sheer trial and error, learning the scientific method by simple, practical experience. "I want this to happen, and I believe that it would result from my doing that. No? Well, then maybe this other."

It had taken him several attempts, but he HAD successfully memorized the answers for the written portion of the chunin test. Now Hinata no longer worried about him failing.

No, now he had to worry about something worse. Every time they got through the test she'd ask him how he did it, admitting that she, herself, had to rely on her bloodline technique to spy out someone else's answers.

Every time he came up with a lie about how he'd spied them out himself, she'd grow excited and ask for more details, and always grew so disappointed when his clumsy structure of lies collapsed and revealed he'd been fibbing.

Telling the truth was almost worse. If he told her how he'd memorized the answers, she'd ask how he knew them beforehand, then he'd be stuck either in another haphazard structure of lies she'd uncover through interested and eager questions, or a truth that she would not believe, one that made her feel he was not only lying, but trying to hide something from her.

Either way, his clumsy attempts at explanations hurt her.

Hurting Hinata made Naruto feel terrible. The more time he spent with her, the more he realized how important he was to her, and the more of a cad to shatter her illusions of him.

So, in desperation, having freshly come from a branch of one of those conversations where Sakura had been boasting over how she'd solved it all herself, without cheating, as a way of pointing out to their teams how much smarter she was than Naruto (before immediately asking Sasuke for a date), the blond genin had gone off to find Iruka.

On locating his old teacher, the boy had shoved the test paper in his face and demanded, "Show me how to answer these problems!"

Chuckling, his old academy instructor did so, starting at the very beginning and leading Naruto through step by step, and confusing him to death not ten seconds into the explanation.

Seeing that, they started over.

Naruto's brain hurt, and he was concentrating as hard as he knew how. The lessons took forever, going over the most basic parts of the easiest problem repeatedly, but slowly how it all worked began to take root.

The next day, he was boasting to Hinata that he'd solved them himself, only for her to confess, shyly, that she'd only answered them by cheating, then asking him for help in understanding them.

After floundering around for a bit, he went back to Iruka so that he'd look less of a fool to Hinata. And, well, the more he knew the more she asked and the more he had to bug Iruka to help him understand them, until Naruto had the ability to pass that test without having memorized the answers.

A good thing for him was he had all of the time in the world to get it right. A BAD thing for his immediate plans was that Iruka was a teacher, and as such he had no intention whatsoever of taking any shortcuts. He was not out to train ANYONE to solve only one problem, he was out to get them to have the concepts down, so they could solve any and all like them, and in some cases know the history and background behind them, which led into all sorts of closely related issues which had to be discussed in detail.

So in spite of himself Naruto was finally picking up some portion of an official shinobi education.

Soon those conversations with Hinata were growing so long Sakura was overhearing them, and hearing Naruto talk about those subjects like he knew anything about them first got met by disbelief, so she pressed him, and when he could answer successfully he IMPRESSED her!

Naruto LIKED impressing Sakura, and nothing he'd ever done before had done it. He also found it impressed Iruka and Hinata, too. Unfortunately for him, he liked it so much he couldn't help but lunge ahead for more, so did some extra studying just to have verbal ammo for impressing them further.

Only this backfired from the start, as each tried to test his knowledge of certain subjects he HADN'T studied, just to determine the breadth of his surprising education, and he kept floundering as they kept hitting topics he hadn't studied yet. Once Sakura hit a subject he knew nothing about she was smug, having validated her opinion of him as a moron (which he hated) but once Iruka found an area of ignorance he was disappointed in Naruto (which the boy also hated). And both were in the habit of testing topic after topic until they found something he didn't know about; not maliciously, just out of disbelief, "You mean you actually know something? You were paying attention when we talking about... well then what about.." etc, etc, etc.

Having found something they never supposed (Naruto's 'hidden' knowledge) they kept probing to find the ends of it, and naturally he kept expanding it as they came up with questions concerning things he didn't understand.

Naruto LIKED impressing people, and didn't get to do it nearly often enough. Soon he found that the more he knew the more he impressed those three, triggering a near endless cycle, as pretty soon Sakura and Hinata were *expecting* him to know things in the later parts of the exam. In the forest, his teammate would quip things like - "Oh, Naruto can find those. He was just telling me about the properties of certain mushrooms..." and so forcing the boy to learn yet more.

But that was getting just a wee bit ahead of our story.

Not long after he had started to memorize the test answers Naruto came up with why his endlessly repeating day had advanced to the Forest of Death that once.

It was simple - every time he passed the written test, the next day found his personal timeline actually advancing one day. On days when he failed any part of the chunin exam, he'd wake up the next morning starting it all over at the beginning again.

That much he was able to figure out, and it wasn't like it was easy to miss, since it started occurring regularly once he'd figured out the hurdles to pass to get by the written exam.

From there it was an easy guess that to get out of this cycle, all he'd have to do was pass the chunin exams in their entirety, and probably he'd have to do something about the invasion, too.

The last was even more of a sticky problem than the first, and the first was no picnic by itself, either. It surprised him, going over it again and again, just how far he'd gotten the first time on sheer luck, when that luck was most definitely NOT going his way on any subsequent attempts!

Any simple thing seemed to trip him up and get he and his team failed.

Well, I don't suppose you could call being killed by Orochimaru simple, but when they entered the forest, it almost invariably happened that ONE of them would get killed by that amazing missing ninja.

Naruto, quite frankly, had no idea how they'd gotten by the first time. It had all been done on impulse - impulses which he could not recall, so he was stuck trying to do it over again, and somehow he kept messing things up to where the Snake Sannin would kill him, or kill Sakura, or kill Sasuke, or all of them.

Waking up after dying was a shock the once, but after that it quickly grew fairly routine. You did it frequently in battle with a legendary missing ninja.

After having been stuck in a day and a half loop for what felt like months, the blond demon container had to admit at last that nothing he did seemed to be able to get he and his team by the amazing snake guy with his hicky of death. It didn't matter if he fought, tried to evade the sannin or spammed the world with clones disguised as his team and raced toward the tower, one of his team would always die, and it was usually him, which sucked.

So it was time to consider other options.

Naruto's usual approach to his day had settled into something of a routine. In the morning of his first day he would ask Hinata out, and after the test they would go out to eat together, where several kunoichi would hang around and watch them, at first in disgust, but as he improved later in giggling glee.

After lunch he would get himself scolded by Ino or Sakura on whatever he'd done wrong, until those two couldn't think of anything (and both girls had begun looking at him with their jaws hanging open). So he'd begun to ask questions of the other kunoichi present, until he was fairly sure those dates were going okay.

Okay, however, was not enough. So after those meals he'd pester the Hokage to introduce him to Kurenai, whose lectures had started to make sense.

It felt GREAT to the genin to actually start to be able to get a handle on something! And though the restaurants progressed in quality, none of the ones that would let him in the door were very good. So for the moment he was stuck, without a good idea how to improve those, and Hinata-chan kept nervously fidgeting during those meals, anxiously watching their audience.

It was something he'd have to work on, as he wanted those dates to go well.

After his dates with Hinata, Naruto generally had a conversation where he impressed Iruka, Sakura or Hinata with his 'hidden' knowledge, and then spent the rest of that day studying what they'd asked about that he didn't know yet.

The next morning, they'd go to the Forest of Death, someone would get killed by Orochimaru, and he'd start all over again. On days when he wasn't the one dying, he'd often leave the forest and try to get someone to train him, but people were so upset over the news of Orochimaru's return and busy dealing with it that no one could spare him any time.

After having exhausted all of the ways he could think of to escape or defeat the Snake Sannin, and coming up with nothing that worked, Naruto decided that a change was in order. And what change he used was based on one of the standard shinobi sayings he'd just recently memorized: "Know thy enemy and know thyself, and you need not fear a hundred battles. Know thyself but not thy enemy, and the outcome is always in doubt. Know neither yourself nor your enemy, and defeat is certain."

Well, Naruto figured he knew himself pretty well. After all, what was there to know? And he was the expert on him anyway. That made it pretty obvious what he had to learn.

So, the next morning of the written test, he went into the test center as usual and shouted, "Oy! Kabuto! What do those nin-cards say about Orochimaru?"

The silver haired genin blinked several times, as did his fellows, but withdrew the appropriate information card anyway. "The legendary Snake Sannin of Konoha, now an S-rank missing ninja. One of the strongest ninja ever to live, he is Kage-rank in most areas, but his specialty is ninjutsu, and his stated goal is to learn all of the ninja techniques in the world. I don't know much about why he was thrown out, or his missions, but his jonin instructor was Sarutobi, our current Hokage, and his teammates were Jiraiya, the Toad Sannin, and Tsunade, the Slug Sannin. That's probably all we'll need to know if there are any questions about this historical figure."

"Huh? I didn't know the old pervert was a teammate of the tongue freak," Naruto mumbled, causing several of those around him to face-flop. "And I'd never heard of this Slug-Lady. Do you think either of them could train me to beat up old Snake-face?"

"OF COURSE NOT! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING! THEY ARE THE LEGENDARY THREE SANNIN! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A DEAD-LAST! DON'T ASK SUCH STUPID QUESTIONS!" Sakura lost her temper to shriek at him, bonking him on the head for such presumption.

Kabuto looked on with some amusement, folding away his nin-cards. "I don't think any of them would be willing to train you, Uzumaki. But supposedly, the three Sannin are fairly evenly balanced. According to what I've heard, at the time he left, Jiraiya could still beat Orochimaru if they fought, but his toad summons would be beaten by Orochimaru's snakes. Tsunade would have lost in a fight with him, but her slugs could beat the snake summons. So really, it would take two of them to beat the third. But it doesn't matter anyway, after Orochimaru left the village, the other two disappeared also."

"Huh?" Naruto almost blurted out that the old guy was in town right now peeping on women's bath houses. He knew, one of his clones had run into him one morning while searching for Hinata.

He spent the next few days seeking out the old pervert, only the old guy was so reluctant to teach him anything that they spent the full day arguing about it and Naruto didn't learn anything.

So, in desperation, Naruto began to fail the written test on purpose, flipping off the instructors, obviously copying off of others, and as that grew boring, he began to grow steadily more outrageous, climbing up on his desk, dropping his pants to moon the entire room (with the test answers written on his bum for good measure), and at last, opting to follow a suggestion given by one of the girls who'd observed their dates, turning to Hinata and loudly suggesting, "Hey, Hinata-chan! Let's make out!"

After her stunned, rosy, shy and nearly silent exclamation of, "A... alright," he then proceeded to kiss her before the audience of genin, causing Sakura to rise up in her seat, face flushed and vein throbbing, to shout at him.

"NARUTO! DON'T DO THAT HERE!" Then her jaw dropped as Naruto did so anyway. It wasn't a very good kiss, but Hinata started to enjoy it. When the pink haired demoness started to shout for them to stop it, however, Team 7 got thrown out.

Naruto's purposes in flubbing the test deliberately were easy enough to describe. The first was to get in some sparring with Sasuke, who'd try to hurt him for having failed so deliberately, and learning to predict and evade those blows was always interesting until he got upset enough to turn his Sharingan on. But mostly he did it because, when he failed the test, Sarutobi gave him a letter to give to Ebisu, who'd teach him something.

The special jonin wasn't on a level with the Sannin, but neither was Naruto, and the blond boy was just getting sick and tired of asking the old pervert for help, only to be snubbed in reply.

The old guy wouldn't even let him sign the toad scroll again, and without that Naruto couldn't summon any!

He was so angry he'd forgotten how he'd convinced the old guy to teach him in the first place, by adopting his Sexy technique to turn into a pretty girl and ask nicely. So he was left with Ebisu, who was clearly second rate by comparison, but still much better than training on his own.

So he filled his afternoons and evenings with training under Ebisu, even going so far as to not walk somewhere if he could run on the walls, and floating a leaf above his head while others were talking, just to fill in the corners and take advantage of all the spare moments during his dull repeating life.

Naruto had long since lost count of the days, he'd not paid any attention to counting them in the beginning anyway. But he guessed it was on the order of a couple months or so before Ebisu pronounced his chakra control, "Decent, almost average. It is not your worst flaw, which is not what I was expecting given what I'd been told," and proceeded to teach him something else.

The blond genin got all excited at that moment, but what Ebisu taught turned out to be the basic Clone technique - not refinements to the Shadow Clone, but the ordinary Academy level ninja technique everybody had to learn.

The boy groaned, but persevered.

By now Naruto had discovered through hard experience that the easiest way around an obstacle was sometimes through it. It was just easier to learn a basic something than it was to argue in favor of getting something cool and useful, because he could either spend a whole day arguing, and learn nothing, or just grit his teeth and learn it, then the next time prove he knew it so he could learn something else instead.

That cycle had happened several times during his chakra control training.

True to form Ebisu wouldn't teach him anything else until he had the basic Clone technique mastered, and then refined up to a level where it was almost impressive. At first Naruto hated spending time on his worst technique when he could have been doing something useful instead, and only put up with it because that was the only way he'd found to get the special jonin who was his teacher to move on. But after a while Ebisu explained how a smart ninja could use both together - a Shadow Clone was solid but vanished after the first hit, while normal Clones, being just illusions, couldn't do much of anything BUT take hits. And they wouldn't vanish when struck, so could take blow after blow if you could trick an enemy into wasting that much attention on them.

So if he was just going to use them for target practice, or as distractions to draw fire (which was, admittedly, most of what Naruto'd already used clones for) ordinary Clones had a place, especially if he mixed ordinary and Shadow Clones into a bunch, so an enemy couldn't know which were solid, and could hurt them, as opposed to those that were mere illusions and couldn't be disrupted by something so simple as a blow, but could otherwise be ignored.

So the Shadow Clones would last longer if they were mixed in and among the ordinary Clones, not granting an enemy a clear of idea of which to strike in order to take out the dangerous ones. Thus, between them, they'd cost an enemy more time and effort dealing with the distraction.

Convinced of the utility of this strategy, Naruto practiced and practiced until he could perform both ordinary and Shadow Clone techniques so close to each other they appeared in the same puffs of smoke, and with illusionary ones mixed among solids until there was no way of telling which was which.

Ebisu even pronounced it a potentially effective battle strategy, capable of being a useful deception, sowing confusion as well as causing damage.

The next time he tested this against Orochimaru it was true, but pointless, because as soon as the Snake Sannin realized that was what he was facing, he threw a massive, wide area jutsu that destroyed everything around them, and in the process killed all of the clones (and Sakura, once again causing their team to fail).

Carrying Sakura's broken, bloody body out of the Forest of Death for he forgot how many times had kind of dulled the blond's reaction to it. They took her to the Konoha morgue, and the blond genin had the appropriate forms and paperwork filled out to inform her family and so on even before the door had finished swinging shut behind them.

They were, it must be admitted, far from the first or only genin team there. Seeing as how the morgue was attached to Konoha's general hospital they had all of the usual around town accidents to take care of, training accidents from newly minted genin all of the way up to a young and foolish jonin who nearly burned her own face off, through chronic ailments like that Hayate guy's coughs... and, the expected serious injuries and deaths caused by the rather extreme second test of the chunin exam.

It was a busy place, and Naruto was out of there before Sasuke had even sat down on a convenient bench to wait for them put the girl's body into a cooler for later autopsy.

Uzumaki, on the other hand, knew he'd be seeing her again tomorrow. Oh, he'd cried for her once, twice... he forgot how many times, even hugged her the next day until she'd smacked him, but she died so often in those fights it just didn't affect him anymore.

He'd died more often than she did, anyway, and she didn't get worked up over it the next day. Of course, she didn't remember it, but his emotions did not care about that. Emotions never do.

No, he had stuff to do.

Sakura was dead, which meant his team had failed. The times it was Sasuke's body in there he'd stick around to comfort Sakura (which was probably the only time she'd let him hug her without beating him for it), but since it was Sakura, the Uchiha would just go on brooding as usual; though, to be honest, it was maybe at a slightly more intense rate.

At least she hadn't choked to death on her own blood this time. Those were always horrible, especially the look in her eyes as it happened. And it always made him feel so guilty, every time she looked so surprised that he wasn't reacting more strongly to her grisly demise.

Shuddering at those memories, Naruto skipped along toward his destination, a place he had been many times, but only just begun to appreciate, the Konoha Public Library.

Under disguise, of course. They'd never let him in otherwise.

They had information on Orochimaru there. Oh, none of the classified stuff, but the publicly available information, which included all of the stuff Kabuto had said about him, plus some other facts and details.

Things like the names of his old students. Mizuki was one (big surprise there, Naruto knew he'd been a traitor since he'd tricked him into stealing the scroll of forbidden seals), another name had been blotted out of the one book on the Snake Sannin's genin team Naruto had been able to find.

But the last was still around. Old Snake-face had left his one-time apprentice in town, a special jonin by the name of Anko Mitarashi - the very same Anko who was proctor for the second test of the chunin exam!

It was amazing what you could read from books.

Creating hundreds of Shadow Clones, the kid began to look for her. Luckily for him, he was early enough she had not yet been informed of Orochimaru's return to town, and so he found her outside of the Forest of Death eating dango, and throwing the empty sticks to a tree where they embedded in the symbol for Konoha, a leaf.

Rushing up to face her, Naruto pointed a finger and the woman and shouted, "I need you to train me!"

Anko actually chuckled. "Oh? Failed already? I guess you do need training. But why do I need to be the one to train you, hmm?"

Breathing heavily from his run, Naruto panted, "If you do, I'll dedicate my life to defeating Orochimaru!"

At this the special jonin actually quirked a brow in interest. "Oh?" She rolled the idea around some in her mind, concluding it could actually be useful to have some help when she went after the old bastard. So she smirked, "Okay, kid, you've got my interest. Tell me what you know already. We'll see where we go from there."

Still panting from his long run, the boy nodded and declared, "Body Switch, Clone, Transformation, Sexy, Shadow Clone, and Harem techniques!"

Abruptly the special jonin's interest turned to amazed disgust. "That's it? How the [blank] did you even get in the chunin exams? Forget it, kid. You'd never survive an encounter with the old bastard. Come back when you're older, and at least be sure to have some useful techniques next time."

"I already survived one fight with him earlier today!" the boy shouted, but this had the opposite effect than intended, getting her to abruptly demand where, then rush off to search for her old master herself.

None of his arguments swayed her, not even when he had a repeat of this same encounter before entering the forest, and without mentioning her old teacher.

Sadly disappointed, Naruto again started flubbing tests on purpose to go back to Ebisu, who so far had been the only teacher he could count on. Well, there was also Kurenai, but he could still hardly understand what she was saying half of the time - and he didn't understand how anything she said was going to help him defeat Orochimaru in any case.

Not that he could afford to get better clothes than he had on, anyway, even if they did what she said they did about making girls like him more. How was that going to matter, anyway?

So, getting another letter from Sarutobi, the demon container once again ventured over to where Ebisu would be, and once more submitted himself to the special jonin's tests to gauge his present skill level.

His spirit soared when, after submitting to the battery of demonstrations he required, the glasses wearing special jonin once more announced they'd be working on a technique!

Then Naruto slammed his face into his palm when Ebisu decided that what he needed to do was bring to full mastery his offensively crude Body Switch, also known as the Replacement technique.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Yes, life for Naruto is an uphill climb, even when he has infinite repeats to take advantage of.

Poor guy. Ah, well, better things are coming for him.


	4. Chapter 4

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Four

by Lionheart

I I I

"Today is a day for deeds of greatness!" Naruto declared to the sky from atop the Hokage monument. Then, turning around, he addressed his army of Shadow Clones. "Are you ready then?"

"YES!" came the responding roar of four hundred throats raised in unison, paint brushes held high aloft.

"Forward!" The real one shouted, pointing off the cliff.

With a roar, they surged ahead, Naruto in the lead, racing off the top of the mountain to run down the face of it, feet sticking to the side. And, just as fast as a waterfall or a curtain being dropped, the entire Hokage monument got painted in brilliant shades of red, yellow, blue, white and orange.

I I I

"Hey Sakura!" the orange clad ninja cried out to his teammate just before the first test started. "I bet you're going to stand up, or shout, or do something stupid to get our team thrown out of this test."

"Naruto!" the annoyed pink haired kunoichi shouted. "I would NEVER do such a thing!"

The blond boy folded his arms. "I said I'd bet you, Sakura-chan. How about, if you do, and I win, then you have to give up on Sasuke. But if you don't, and I lose, I don't ask you out any more?"

"No way! I would NEVER bargain away my relationship with Sasuke, even on a sure thing like that!" she shouted, then turned to bat her eyes to her crush. "You see, Sasuke-kun? Nothing can tear us apart."

The Last Uchiha rolled his eyes in disgust.

I I I

"Hey Sakura!" the orange clad ninja cried out to his teammate just before the first test started. "I bet you're going to stand up, or shout, or do something stupid to get our team thrown out of this test."

"Naruto!" the annoyed pink haired kunoichi shouted. "I would NEVER do such a thing!"

The blond boy folded his arms. "I said I'd bet you, Sakura-chan. How about, if you do, you ask Kiba out instead of Sasuke at the end of this period, and if you don't, I'll start asking Ino out instead of you?"

"That's disgusting! Go out with that hairy animal? I'd rather die!"

Kiba, who was standing nearby, cracked his knuckles and bared his fangs, growling angrily, "That can be arranged."

I I I

"Hey Sakura!" the orange clad ninja cried out to his teammate just before the first test started. "I bet you're going to stand up, or shout, or do something stupid to get our team thrown out of this test."

"Naruto!" the annoyed pink haired kunoichi shouted. "I would NEVER do such a thing!"

"Okay, let's bet. Say you do, then you have to wear whatever outfit Ino picks out for the rest of the day. If not, then I'll wear the same thing she'd picked out for you for the same period."

"You're on!"

Ino was also grinning. "Oh, I've got just the outfit, too."

"Quiet down!" Ibiki entered the exam room, explained the rules and got all of the genin to their seats.

A mere minute into the exam, however...

"I'm done!" Naruto cried at the top of his lungs, flipping his test sheet over. Then he turned to take Hinata's hands in his, and, looking into her eyes, ask, "Hinata darling, are you done as well?"

"Y.. yes!" she squeaked, turning bright red.

"Then turn your paper over," he softly suggested, gently reaching out and taking her into a hug. "We have forty minutes left until the tenth question."

The amazingly fast motion as she flipped her paper face down was not lost on anyone, nor was her blush or the smile steadily creeping up on her face as she melted into his hug.

"Oh, Hinata-chan! You are so lovely. I must kiss you!" and then Naruto did so, with the benefit of plenty of makeout sessions behind him. Several of the other genin nearby started to whoop and make cat-calls.

"N... Na... NARUTO!" Hinata cried out as he nibbled a particularly sensitive spot at the base her neck, clinging to him for all her might.

"NARUTOOO!" Sakura screamed, rising from her desk at this unseemly public display of affection. Then out of the corner of her eyes she caught one of the test proctors making a careful note on his clipboard, and sank meekly back down in her chair again, ashamed as her memory prompted her about the bet.

But why was Naruto baiting her, and... when did he learn how to kiss?

Ibiki, standing in front of the two embracing students and pretending indifference to them, picked up their test papers and quirked an eyebrow at them.

Interesting. Those were not the same answers his plants would provide, but they were detailed, complete, and correct for all he could tell, and though the papers were identical to each other, no one had caught them, not when they copied each other's answers, nor when they'd somehow rigged it to have adjacent seats.

Interesting. These two would bear watching.

"Aa... AAaaaAHHh!" Hinata shrieked out, lost to the world around her.

Ibiki looked around the class. Well, no one was obviously treating this as a coded message, from what he could tell. And though it wouldn't be too hard to encode moans and gasps like that, unless they could actually catch them transmitting data, they couldn't count it as having caught an attempt to cheat, not so long as the couple acted out their roles so well. An ingenious strategy actually, and a command performance carrying it out. That took talent, he almost believed they were doing it just for the fun they were having. So even though he knew this could be no more innocent than the dog barking, he couldn't do anything unless they messed up and got caught.

No, these two would bear watching indeed.

I I I

"It's not fair!" Sakura complained, looking askance at Naruto. "You even have a better figure than I do!"

"What do you expect? It's a variant of the Transformation technique. I can look however I want," Naruto-chan told her, presently in his Sexy technique disguise of a buxom blonde girl, and wearing a lacy teddy with silk stockings. "And Ino has EXCELLENT taste! What I want to know is how you held your nerve for the entire test!"

"It wasn't easy," the pink-haired one complained at low volume, looking away from her teammate.

Hinata sighed fondly, sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around Naruto-chan's legs, and head laying in her lap, where Naruto was pleasantly stroking her hair.

"You aren't going to stay inside all day, are you?" Ino teased.

"Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Do you know how many perverts there are out there?" Naruto-chan teased right back at her.

"Yeah, loads." Ino shrugged.

"Three hundred and eighty seven," Naruto corrected. "And one closet pervert."

"Hmmmm," Hinata sighed softly yet loudly, warm in her contentment.

Sakura's eyebrow twitched. "Make that eighty-eight," she grumbled.

I I I

True to form, Ebisu worked with him until Naruto could perform the Body Switch technique quickly and effortlessly, needing very little warning before activating it.

Actually, the skill gave a great tactical advantage to Naruto, as he grew good enough at it his Shadow Clones could now use the technique without a serious drain on their chakra stores, which meant they could use it to escape from blows that might otherwise destroy them, multiplying their effectiveness and survivability drastically.

They still couldn't take a hit, but they could evade one far more easily.

That made them more than a human blitz attack, as they could still charge in a wave, but no longer did they need to be replaced for each attack, as some would almost certainly survive to continue the assault.

Also, the real Naruto could be far more easily and completely protected by his clones, setting aside a bodyguard group who, instead of leaping in front of blows to shield him (something that didn't often work, especially when a foe used attacks that could go right through several bodies in a row), they could hang back, and use Body Switch to replace him at crucial moments, getting him out of combat before the nasty attacks hit.

Naruto almost immediately hit on a battle strategy where his clones would leap at a foe, as usual, then Body Switch out so their target would be struck by a hail of logs and small boulders before the clones once again rushed in to attack the hopefully bruised opponent during the distraction.

So, once again he had multiplied the value of his mass clone attacks by fully mastering one of the basic three under Ebisu. And, once again, it failed to make any difference when facing Orochimaru.

Although, it did take the sannin slightly longer to kill him this time, so that was sort of a success.

I I I

"So, the Transformation technique, huh?" Naruto asked Ebisu the next time they met.

The special jonin was impressed. "How did you guess?"

"Oh, just a feeling," Naruto groaned, depressed.

"Hmph. Perform the technique. I want to see where you are so I know what you are missing."

Forming the seal, the blond boy transformed into a copy of Iruka in a puff of smoke.

"Hmm," Ebisu examined the disguise for a moment, then he stepped back and straightened his glasses. "Not bad. Far from useless, actually. You still rely too much on a stance and concentration, we shall have to train that out of you so you can do it on the move. Your puff of smoke is far too obvious. We must reduce it. Ideally you must eliminate that entirely, and you'll want to be able to perform the technique on short notice even when surprised. Still, for all your clumsy execution of it, the results are nearly flawless. I am having trouble finding any of the usual telltales or signs that this is an illusion."

"What are you talking about?" The Naruto/Iruka asked, confused.

"All illusion techniques are vulnerable," Ebisu instructed. "They have weak points, and are limited by the imaginations and power of those who create them, in addition to being limited by skill. So, details will be incorrect, edges may blur, and the interaction with the environment will all be flawed. But in your case... well, look at your feet as an example. An excellent job. I am honestly surprised."

Naruto/Iruka lifted both of his feet, one at a time, to look at them, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. "What are you talking about?"

The special jonin folded his arms and huffed. "Naruto, don't treat me as a fool. You are not Iruka. You are smaller than him, for one. My first impulse would be to scold you for choosing a shape too far different from your own to hide in, but I won't, as you execute it flawlessly."

"Huh?" Naruto was shaking his head in confusion.

Ebisu sighed, shoving his glasses back up his nose. "Naruto, you cannot be ignorant of this. I know there is a story going around the younger students of someone who transformed into a shuriken and was thrown by another member of his team to surprise an enemy, but such tall tales are ridiculous. The technique does not work that way. All that Transformation does, all it ever CAN do, is to cloak you in an illusion. It has not ever been a real change, wild rumors to the contrary, nor can it ever be one. For a boy who seeks so much approval I am surprised you reject my compliments on your technique."

The special jonin waved to him as he listed off points. "In the first place your feet are smaller than Iruka's. Being a simple illusion, the grass you stand on should poke through the image where your feet aren't but his would be; yet you have already accounted for that and covered it, enhancing your illusion so that it seems as if the grass bends under the full impression of the foot. Nor are you blurred or incomplete. It is quite frankly one of the better images I have ever seen worn, jonin level easily. I was unaware you were trying to become a stealth and infiltration specialist. But you must be, to have worked so hard on this technique. It must have taken you months to get the Iruka disguise this perfect. Tell me, have you practiced any others?"

Shocked momentarily speechless, Naruto formed the set of seals again and in a poof of smoke was replaced by the image of the Third Hokage.

"Most impressive," Ebisu walked around him, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he judged the image. "I could almost believe it was him."

Then Naruto/Hokage reached out and pinched his nose.

"GWAAHH!" The special jonin leaped back several feet, limbs splayed in surprise, before he recomposed himself and straightened his glasses. "I must give you credit, Naruto. Precisely matching the movements of your illusion to yourself, particularly when it is of a shape taller and with longer reach than you... that is a skill that will serve you well at infiltration. I did not expect it from you. That is a very advanced technique."

Naruto/Hokage grinned from ear to ear. "I'm not an illusion."

"WHA..?" the special jonin's glasses fell down his face as his jaw dropped in shock. Then he was all over Naruto, patting him on his head, shoulders, testing that his arms were real and solid, then frisking him all over. "Forgive me, Hokage-sama." The special jonin bowed. "But... what has become of my student?"

With a puff of smoke, the technique got released and Naruto stood there. "I'm still here."

Once again the special jonin had to pat him all over before he could believe it was really him. Then, composure lost entirely, he stuttered, "You mean... you... what I... but..."

"When I change, I really change," the boy confirmed.

Instantly the special jonin was standing by his side, hand over his mouth and eyes alert for witnesses able to overhear this conversation. When he found none, he whispered into Naruto's ear. "You must never tell anyone of this, Naruto. As of this moment, you must consider your Transformation an S-rank technique! It is capable of foiling the security of practically any ninja village! We cannot allow this to fall into enemy hands. Have you taught anyone else your version of the technique, as you use it?"

"Yah. Konohamaru, your other student. I taught him as part of Sexy technique." The boy blinked.

Ebisu was standing across from him and bowed. "Naruto, I must apologize. You are indeed a genius of the highest caliber! I thank you for your gift to my other student. Now, I must go report to the Hokage this information."

"Wait!" Naruto called out, stopping him. "Can't you give me a few hints on how to refine my smoke and stuff, first?"

"Of course, Naruto." The special jonin fixed his glasses. "I can spare you the time for that."

An hour later, after Ebisu had left to report this information, a giggling Naruto discovered that the scroll of forbidden seals was under more guards and security than the last time, including a seal array that the Hokage knew how to deactivate, but Naruto didn't.

So much for the short route to power.

I I I

Probably the best thing Iruka had ever done for him, Naruto reflected, was teach him how to read.

If only it hadn't taken a time loop for him to do it properly.

All of those other things people took for granted, the village pariah had had to struggle for. No one had ever taught him things others took for granted. Not having parents, or any reliable adult figures, really, he could not get the most basic assistance on most matters.

So, for most of his life, he'd gone without crucial knowledge, and a big part of that was having a literacy level on par with most preschoolers. Most of the time he'd spent studying the scroll of forbidden seals was trying to get what the various kanji meant, and most of the work he'd done on the skill was in studying the pictures, then trying out variations on themes to guess the correct combination to activate the technique. And he'd beaten himself up pretty badly during the process.

It was the same way with his other techniques, only in one case that seemed to have done him a good turn, at least with regards to the Transformation technique. The version he'd cobbled together on his own did what he thought the technique should have done, rather than what everyone else did.

But still, overall, the inability to read well had been a major hindrance to him, all his life long.

His schoolwork had stunk, but most of the reason behind his low grades came from his inability to read textbooks, and the few kanji he knew were mostly learned by watching and listening to what the teacher wrote on the board during classes - the reason he'd attended at all, when mostly he'd rather be skipping out on boring lectures to do stuff that was interesting.

Now, however... well, that was one of the first things corrected by his time studying with Iruka during this endlessly repeating loop. But it had taken so long to do properly it was only now beginning to bear fruit.

And it made SUCH a difference in his life!

It was like his functional illiteracy had been a huge chain holding him back. Without that impediment, it was revealed that he easily had one of the finest minds in the village.

Sakura? Bah! She had nothing on him. The highest grades in their year and yet she didn't have half of his brilliance, now that it was allowed to shine.

Whatever wall the villagers had wanted to erect around him to keep him from growing was now broken. Because he could read, really read, not puzzle out a few kanji here or there and puzzle out some of the rest by context, he could look up information by himself, no longer depending on whatever scraps they wanted to dole out, which was always the least they could get away with.

Freed of his ignorance, Naruto's mind was now shooting forward in making up for lost time. First recovering to where it ought to have been for his age level, and then rapidly shooting higher. While teaching him the answers to the chunin exam, Iruka had brought his literacy level up to where it should be for his age, now Naruto kept pressing it higher.

All of his life he'd been limited to knowing only what others had been willing to teach him, which meant that he knew nothing. Or at least nothing they could get away with 'forgetting' to share with him.

The ability to read changed that whole paradigm. Now he could find out things for himself, all he had to do was find it in a book. And books didn't hate him or want to keep him ignorant. They were willing to share with anyone who opened their covers. It didn't matter to them he was a demon container, shunned and avoided by everyone, the most unpopular boy in the village.

Books quickly became some of his best friends.

Why? Because he could LEARN STUFF from books! There was all sorts of things hidden out in there, like the names of Orochimaru's apprentices, and the history of Konoha, all of the stuff he'd missed out learning during class, as well as stuff the average villagers didn't know.

Whatever he wanted to know, it seemed there was an answer in books.

Case in point, Naruto giggled to himself, was the 'Dating and Courtship' book he was now holding. In it were all kinds of suggestions and rules no one had ever thought to tell him about. It was amazing, really. It filled in the gaps between what the giggling kunoichi could tell him about, and what Kurenai expected him to be able to understand.

Naruto had already made some progress on that whole romance thing, enough so that by now when he was thinking about it, he was, for a twelve year old boy, fairly smooth. Of course, that wasn't saying much, as boys his age were still all remarkably crude, but he was getting to where he was no longer an abomination offensive to the female sex.

Of all of the ways the villager's hatred had stunted him, his social ignorance was the worst. He'd literally had no idea how normal people interacted. The villagers had made sure of that.

But, now that the dam of his ignorance had burst with him learning how to really READ, he was able to correct that. The library was full of novels of how normal people treated each other. It was fascinating to the boy, like a light shining forth in a room deliberately held dark all this time.

It was liberating in a way he could not even describe.

Once he'd crested the limit of functional literacy he'd immediately gone and hidden out in the public library for a couple of months, reading as a man who was parched and thirsty might drink, not even caring about the chunin test.

It changed his life.

And, not surprisingly, his angry teammates never found him there.

But having been empty-headed, now he wanted to be filled! And all of the road blocks he'd been up against seemed to have their answers now.

His dates with Hinata had kind of gotten stuck in a rut, and so he decided to try something new concerning them, giving up on restaurants entirely to throw her a party at his house.

It was a disaster of the worst sort.

Naruto's home was hardly tidy at the best of times, barely clean, and only somewhat livable. It was obvious on taking her there that Hinata found the place horrible, although to tell by her reaction, it was not the first time she'd seen it, which was odd, as it was certainly the first time he'd invited her.

But you know what? Now he could learn from that. Having read a detective novel or two, he understood about looking for clues. Her having seen his apartment before meant something.

So he'd asked her about that after the next switch, and she'd stuttered out an apology like she'd been caught in some horrible atrocity.

Her crime? She'd liked him since they'd been small, and had watched him from a distance, always there, but never brave enough to step in and help. And yet, confronted about it, she treated it as though she'd been doing some horrible thing.

Naruto had to laugh.

Here, the mystery person who'd given him presents for his birthday, left on his doorstep year after year, probably the ONE person in town who'd liked him growing up, was afraid that she'd done something awful by liking him.

It was too much. He had to laugh. Now in the past he would have done that by falling on the ground and rolling around, and she would've run off crying, utterly crushed by his response. But now that he had a few romance novels under his belt, so to speak, he knew enough to hug her and chuckle into her hair in between whispers that it was alright, explaining to her as he had breath exactly what he'd been thinking - that she'd been the nicest person in the whole world to him, and expecting him to be angry for that was silly.

The way he explained it even made her chuckle a bit along with him, mostly that was in relief that he didn't hate her, however.

No, things had definitely turned a corner in his life now. It was never going to be the same again.

And he started out by asking Hinata about her life.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Wow. People are even reading this junk. Who would have thought? It's come a long way from a first chapter with only 6 reviews.


	5. Chapter 5

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Five

by Lionheart

I I I

"Psst! Hinata-chan, are you awake?"

"Eeep!" The lavender haired girl came awake in fright, only to see Naruto there with the goggles she'd once given him on his head were his headband used to be. His ninja marker now hung around his neck, like hers did.

Before she could conclude anything, he was leaning closer, "I'll leave so you can get dressed. I'd just hoped we could walk to the exam together. After all, I just discovered the cutest girl in our class was also the one who has been giving me presents all these years. Thank you Hinata-chan," he bent close to place a kiss on her unresisting forehead. "You believed in me. That, more than anything, is what kept me going."

Then he was gone.

She hurried to wash herself and scramble into her clothes.

Naruto was waiting for her by the gate. So high she was that her long time crush had finally discovered, and LIKED her, that her feet barely hit the ground as they chatted along on their way to the center.

She was walking on clouds the entire time.

It never occurred to her to wonder how he knew the guard schedule and sentry posts around the Hyuga complex well enough to sneak into her room, or that they couldn't have their bloodline active all of the time due to chakra constraints.

For Naruto, it was the least he could do after finding out about her unhappy home life. Really, he'd always thought having no parents was bad, but having her dad was possibly worse. The guy was an active negative!

He'd been upset before the time loop when Neji told him about the Caged Bird seal, but between that, plus what he'd been worming out of Kurenai and the Hokage, plus what he could get by prompting Hinata (sometimes confronting Neji, also) he was beginning to get an extremely poor opinion of the clan, or at least of the clan head.

It had taken weeks of learning her responses, learning how to befriend her quickly and get her to trust him, but in a conversation about how to help Hinata, Kurenai (whom he'd gotten half drunk) had told him of that time she'd picked up the shy girl to take her to the academy for her first class, how she'd warned the father that being a genin was a dangerous path for Hinata.

Naruto still felt chilled over her quote of the man's response, that it didn't matter, as Hinata was a failure and the Hyuga clan had no use for her. Then the coldness of Hiashi declaring, "If she dies, she dies."

Worst of all, he'd said that in front of her with Hinata right there listening.

No, in Naruto's mind, the Hyuga clan was a problem that had to be fixed. And the biggest part of that to him was making sure Hinata could be happy.

Fortunately, at least that part was easy. He loved that girl, and only part of that was she was the person who'd taught him what love was.

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What have you got on Neji Hyuga?"

"Hmm," the silver haired ninja selected a card from deep within. "It says here he was last year's top rookie. Unarmed fighting specialist, practicing his family's Gentle Fist style. His bloodline also makes him a prime contender in the exams."

'Nothing on the Caged Bird seal' Naruto though despondently, and nearly turned away before pausing. "What's the top card in your deck say?"

"Oh? It's a chart showing the population of the five great ninja villages and how they compare to each other. See?"

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the second card down in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh. That lists off the leaders of the various elemental countries. Here, let me show you."

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the third card in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh. Well here, let's see. Ah! That's my listing of the various villages that have hosted the chunin exam, in order, ever since I started taking it. Only a memento, really. They never ask."

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the eighty second card down in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh. Just picking numbers are you? Well, let's see anyway. That's a nin-info card on a girl who died during our last exam. I guess I should throw that one away."

"What did she die of?"

"Oh, a Rain ninja killed her using a rain of needles. It was ugly, but not too unexpected. She just wasn't up to taking the chunin test, to be honest."

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the two hundred and ninety second card down in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh, wow, I never expected to be asked anything like that. Just picking numbers out of the air, are you? Well, let's have a look. Ah! It's the bottom one, and it looks like an information chart on Hayate Gekko, a special jonin of Konoha and frequently an instructor of the chunin exams when they are held locally. It says here that he is in chronically poor health, which is particularly sad since his specialty is swordsmanship, although he is also a master of the shadow clone technique."

"Thanks," Naruto waved, then paused, turning back to face the silver haired genin. "How do you make those cards, anyway?"

Kabuto smiled, straightening his glasses. "Oh, it's pretty simple. Here, let me show you how to make your own. Do you have a piece of paper handy?"

Naruto smiled. "I'll bring one tomorrow."

"Well, no need to waste time. I think I have a spare on me." Kabuto started rummaging around in his pouch, but came up nothing. "Well, I guess not. Sorry, I guess we'll do it tomorrow. It's not like I have a card I can just erase to show you."

Naruto, still smiling, suggested, "Try cards eighty two, one hundred and three, and two-twelve."

I I I

"Oh, hi Sakura!" the blond, orange-clad genin called out as he blurred past.

Pink hair swishing in the breeze of his passage, the girl paused to wonder at Naruto's behavior before continuing on her walk towards the test center.

Why hadn't Naruto bugged her?

"Oy! Nara!" she heard him call out in the distance. "You up to a shogi game after the test, if the examiners don't need us?"

"So troublesome. You wouldn't be any challenge."

"Win or lose, I'll take Ino off your hands for a day."

"Deal!"

"Stupid! Why would I agree to such a thing?" Ino objected, fists clenched.

"Because I'll carry your things while you shop, and help you out in your store for the rest of the day," the other yellow haired genin told her.

Ino blinked once, twice, then smiled. "Sure! Thanks Naruto!"

Behind them, the pink haired girl stood, blinking over this exchange.

I I I

Naruto whistled as he skipped along.

He was now varying his daily schedule as much as possible. Some days he picked up Hinata at her home and spent the day with her, and those were always nice.

He and Hinata had really started to become close friends as he learned more about her, and he'd really started to like her.

It was hard not to like her when she already liked him so much.

From her perspective (from what she told him), his just suddenly revealing that he liked her too was a gift from Heaven. So he could reveal all sorts of knowledge about her likes and dislikes and she would just assume that he'd somehow miraculously been observing her while she'd stalked him. In short, she'd gladly accept whatever level of friendship he offered her.

Naruto had, very quickly, grown to like and appreciate her. Nobody else in all of those repeats had been changing how they acted towards him, except her; so she stood out in that whatever attention he gave her would change her reactions toward him.

It had quickly become a lifeline to the endlessly repeating boy.

However, he was careful not to rely on it too much, lest that too became boring. And he didn't think he could bear to have his one, true friend start to bore him. He'd rather die.

Well, he HAD died, fairly often actually, and it hadn't stuck, but it was the sentiment that counted.

So he reserved those Hinata days for when he really needed them, once a week or so at most, and even so he'd begun to take her out on picnics and so on, varying their dates as much as possible to keep things fresh.

Other days, well...

Some days he researched, both the Hyuga clan and other topics.

The conversations to impress his friends had lost most of their initial luster. By this point, when he started to reveal 'hidden knowledge' they tested and tested him to find its limits, until that took all day without him learning about any new subjects he hadn't covered.

He'd found he could change that when he had a new topic of his own to introduce, but those were hard to think of, as left to their own devices they'd all ask the same questions over again leading to the same subjects he'd studied before.

So he'd taken to breaking into the Academy and reading the schoolbooks over, including some texts he had never owned any copies of (and some of which had been sold to him as 'special copies' with information deleted or changed, to teach him wrong answers), just to have fresh material to inject into those conversations, as otherwise they grew too boring.

But he had also started to vary whom he'd hang out with on most days. Nara was a bright spot on the otherwise dull backdrop of repetition, in that after the lazy boy had taught him shogi they'd been able to play together, and their games had always been different.

Of course, Naruto always lost, but that wasn't the point.

Ino was another refreshing person to be around. As he'd begun to expand his circle of friends, Naruto had discovered the girl to be nothing like Sakura was and yet everything he'd hoped she would be.

To put that another way, all of the qualities he'd previously admired about his pink haired former crush had been taught to her by Ino, who also had none of Sakura's flaws. Well, none except a crush on the Uchiha anyway, but there Ino was capable of listening to reason.

Sakura never was, in all of the times he'd tried her.

The textbook definition of a chauvinist was "a blindly devoted patriot", and by that Sakura was definitely a Sasuke-chauvinist. Nothing he did was wrong in her eyes, nor COULD HE do anything wrong as far as she was concerned!

Naruto had long since grown tired of it.

But luckily, he didn't have to put up with it, as there was nothing that required him to hang around with his team outside of missions. So long as he showed up for tests, they had nothing to complain about.

At least until Orochimaru killed them again.

And by spending less time with his team Naruto got to hang out with more interesting people. Ino was one such, by just suggesting one thing or another he could get her to shop for it, and so long as he stayed in disguise (for reasons he found easy to explain to her) they'd go around town shopping for whatever.

Doing such, he was learning how to tell good deals from bad, judge prices and product quality, as well as where to get deals - all stuff he'd never known before, as he'd been lucky to get inside a store's door growing up.

Those times they shopped for food, she'd also help show him how to cook, which was yet another of those skills he'd never had anyone to teach him as he'd been growing up.

His ramen obsession was a function of three things: his desperation to eat SOMETHING, his inability to shop normally (people sold him old, out of date or rancid food as often as possible, and all for premium prices, which was a real problem back before he could read and couldn't tell they were cheating him), and not knowing how to cook on his own forcing him to choose the simplest of all food to prepare, even though it had all of the nutritional value of warm cardboard. It was probably only his healing ability that kept him alive.

Well, that and the people at Ichiraku, who were nice to him.

No, Naruto was swiftly becoming very fond of Ino, and after shopping, and sometimes a meal, she'd let him help out in her family's flower shop (usually in his Sexy Naruto-chan disguise, to avoid scaring off any customers) where he learned about the various flowers, their meanings and properties.

So that was good.

By now Naruto had exhausted the limits of what Iruka could teach on most school subjects. The man was only a chunin, and a schoolteacher at that; so while he had a broad grasp of the essential ninja basics on up to chunin level, his focus had been down, on teaching genin, not up, on learning jonin level techniques or knowledge.

But still, while Naruto might not be chunin level on most skills, it was nice for him to have the book smarts of his hoped-for ninja rank, and to be able to calculate a parabola when he needed to.

So he went on reading books on those subjects for answers to give Hinata because asking Iruka grew to be too much of a pain, as his former teacher took longer to find things than just looking up the answers himself.

Next day he was planning on losing a bet with Kiba and paying a forfeit of 'having' to help out around that family's kennel, where he learned almost as many things as at Ino's shop.

They just weren't as nice about it, and taught about dogs instead of flowers.

After that, well, maybe he'd hang out with the Hokage for a day and prompt the old man to tell him stories. That had started out as a way to learn about his former favorite student, Orochimaru, but it turned out the old guy had a storytelling bone or two in his body, and he'd lived so long and seen so much stuff, all he'd have to do is prompt him the right way and the Hokage never seemed to run out of material, really interesting stuff, too.

Yeah. It was worth it. He'd go hang out with the Hokage again after this.

I I I

After who knows how long training with Ebisu, months of hard work on basic chakra control to be 'decent', then weeks each spent mastering intricacies of the Body Switch, basic Clone, and Transformation techniques, then MORE months spent on further chakra control exercises until he was 'tolerable, above average, but barely', the special jonin had taken him back to the basic essential three ninja techniques again until he could perform them without seals, on almost no notice and with hardly any sign he was doing them.

It was hardly possible to master them any further. There was only so much you could do to refine something, and he'd about hit that limit.

Yes, Ebisu liked to focus on the basics. He considered them important, vital even; or it could just be that he disliked Naruto that much.

Once more the blond genin showed up for his instruction, almost physically able to feel his expectation of the guy wanting to spend more time refining basic techniques, or to show him yet MORE minor refinements to establish slightly greater chakra control, on the road up to 'acceptable, almost good.' He nearly fell down in a faint when his teacher declared it was time the boy ought to learn a jutsu that WASN'T among the basic three!

Finally! At Last!

He got to learn Body Flicker, the short range transportation technique!

Okay, it wasn't much, being both low rank and common - almost a calling card for being a true ninja. But hey, he was excited! Kakashi may have a thousand ninja techniques, but Naruto only had four that he hadn't invented himself.

One more made a big difference.

I I I

"Sasuke, you do sense something odd about Naruto?"

"hn."

Having failed to get a useful response from her crush as he passed by where she sat eating, Sakura went back to her lunch, gazing off at her other teammate, who was laughing and joking with a trio of normally reserved genin from Hidden Sound.

The next day it would be Hidden Rain, but she didn't know that.

I I I

"... Naruto?" A voice asked from the door to his apartment.

The boy looked up from what he was doing. "Oy! Sakura. I wasn't expecting you."

He looked oddly puzzled by that statement, but he hid it well, so she didn't notice. Her mind was preoccupied anyway, but not so much she didn't notice the parts strewn on the floor around him. "What are you doing?"

"Oh," the boy gestured casually to the open book on the floor beside him. "Learning how to fix things. The lock on my door has been busted for a long time. I thought I'd learn how to repair it."

"That's nice," the kunoichi mumbled, not really meaning it.

"So what brings you here?" he prompted.

"Earlier today, I saw you talking with some Sound ninja," she stated. "I don't think that's right! They could just be using you! They might do anything to get ahead in the exam!"

I I I

"What are you doing?"

"Oh," the boy gestured casually to the open book on the counter beside him. "Learning how to fix things. The hot water tap in my sink has been busted for a long time. I thought I'd learn how to repair it."

"That's nice," the kunoichi mumbled, not really meaning it.

"So what brings you here?" he prompted.

"Earlier today, I saw you talking with some Grass ninja," she stated. "I don't think that's right! They could just be using you! They might do anything to get ahead in the exam!"

I I I

"What are you doing?"

"Oh," the boy gestured casually to the bucket of plaster on the floor beside him with the spreading tool in his hand. "Just repairing some of the holes in my walls. It makes it less drafty in here."

"That's nice," the kunoichi mumbled, not really meaning it.

"So what brings you here?" he prompted.

"Earlier today, I saw you talking with some Sand ninja," she stated.

"Oh yeah!" he brightened. "Gaara is the youngest son of the Kazekage, and the other two members of his team are his brother and sister, Kankuro and Temari. Nice folks."

"Why did you approach them?" she demanded, fists clenched in worry. "That one with the jug almost killed you!"

"Oh, I just wanted to know why they are going to attack our village, that's all. And being hostile or wanting me dead doesn't make them any different than most of Konoha."

Sakura found herself gaping like a fish.

I I I

"Oh, hi Sakura-chan!" Naruto called out through the mouthful of nails held between his teeth.

"What are you doing?" She approached, momentarily forgetting why she was there.

"Oh, I'm just opening up the wall of this room. The apartment next to mine has always been empty, and I got the Hokage's permission to join it to mine so I can have plenty of space for guests to visit. I've got it almost done now. What do you want?"

I I I

"Naruto, I just wanted you to know that I saw you flirting with Kiba's sister!"

"That's nice. Could you hand me that wrench please?"

Baffled at this response, Sakura did so. "Why did you do it?"

"Because it was fun. Why do other people flirt?"

Sakura had no answer to that. Instead she looked around her. "Why are we in the basement of your apartment building?"

Naruto confidently spun the wrench around his fingers before making the last adjustments to the pipes. "Because this is where the hot water to my apartment got turned off. I'm just turning it back on again. Oh, I had to replace some rusted through and busted up pipes first, though. Someone must have taken an axe to them to make certain I had cold baths. But I was able to salvage spares from a building that's scheduled for demolition."

"Oh."

I I I

"Naruto, I had no idea your apartment was this good!" Sakura looked about herself in amazement while handing him the screwdriver he'd asked for.

"Yeah, it does look like kind of a dump from the outside, doesn't it?" He said through a couple of screws held between his teeth, lying on his back on two boards between two ladders as he did something to his ceiling.

"What are you doing up there, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm just finished rewiring the place and I thought this would be a good spot to hang a ceiling fan from. What do you think?"

She thought about it for a second. "Wouldn't it be better over there?"

"I was going to put a sofa there, with a coffee table in front and recliners to either side. The table is going to go here. I thought about carpeting, but I think I prefer hardwood floors with some throw rugs on high traffic areas."

"Yes." Sakura chirped brightly. "I think that would look nice."

I I I

"I'm just saying you should have shown up to the test wearing more than your underwear and a cape, that's all!" Sakura insisted.

"Uh huh," he mumbled, busy fastening upholstery onto a newly assembled recliner frame.

I I I

"Naruto! Could you turn that thing off! I've got to talk to you!"

"What is it, Sakura?" The boy lifted up his goggles after turning off the power saw on the work bench.

She saw it. "What are you doing?"

"Making myself a matching dining room set to go with the remodeled kitchen. Don't touch the table, it hasn't had a chance for the varnish to dry yet and I don't want to have to buff out any fingerprints to get a good, high gloss."

"Oh." She blinked several times in confusion.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked, going over to check on the clamps that were currently pressing wood for the curved-back chairs.

I I I

"Oy! Sakura! Something you want to talk about?"

"Yeah, I guess." The kunoichi nervously entered the room where he was working.

"Just a moment," he cautioned, blowing through the hollow wooden rod to expand the ball of glass on the end into a mold. "Okay, you can talk now."

"What are you doing?"

"Making a set of goblets and glasses to go with my new tableware, why?"

I I I

Immediately on waking up one morning, Naruto created sixty Shadow Clones that immediately set about performing tasks transforming his house in ways that he himself had practiced up before.

Two more ran off to make purchases around town, including a better set of clothes, a blue outfit based on Kurenai's suggestions. He'd be broke after doing it, but that would reset tomorrow with the rest of it.

That afternoon, when he led Hinata to his house for their lunch date, she stood staring, then turned to him with stars in her eyes.

"I learned how to fix it up since your last visit," he told her, looking the girl fondly in her eyes while gently stroking her chin.

"Naruto-kun!" She leapt into his arms and squeezed him tightly as the romantic atmosphere overwhelmed her.

Sighing as it heard this from the next room, the apron wearing clone in the kitchen turned down the heat on the roast. It looked like dinner would have to be delayed.

Sighing fondly as she got told about it later, Kurenai told him, "About the only thing you missed was romantic music. Good job Uzumaki."

"Music?" the boy asked her intently.

Nothing must be neglected or forgotten in providing the perfect date to the one girl who'd always believed in him!

I I I

The next morning had Naruto in his Sexy disguise (although fully clothed) looking in a music shop window.

Both instruments and lessons were each more than he could afford. So, the next question became, how to get more money?

I I I  
Author's Notes:

The thing about a time loop is you often grow in the most unexpected ways, especially when denied the routes you WANT to progress in!


	6. Chapter 6

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Six

by Lionheart

I I I

Getting music lessons was easier than Naruto thought.

He'd show up disguised as the Uchiha, and they'd fall all over themselves to show him around, let him 'test' various instruments, and even give him a complimentary lesson or two, usually lasting for a couple of hours of decent quality instruction.

It was sickening, absolutely revolting, favoritism of the worst sort, and still for all of that a very useful loophole for the poor boy to exploit. And he did not need more than a free lesson or two, given that he was in an endless loop of recycling days, one free lesson became an infinite number of them.

The music teachers didn't even question as his skill began to rise, assuming it was the rightful privilege of the Last Uchiha to know everything.

Well, that was a useful weakness he could exploit in other ways, too.

Naruto would be the first to admit that he had no martial arts at all. He had no style, no finesse, and absolutely no understanding beyond the two-year old "charge the guy and hit him" mindset.

Heck, in one of the recent visits to the Inuzuka family clinic, helping out after having 'lost' a bet, he'd gotten into an argument with Kiba about being weak, where the dog-user had frankly told him that it didn't matter that Naruto knew the Shadow Clone, "Because a thousand times nothing is still nothing!"

And, well, in all honesty the blond couldn't deny the truth of his friend's statement.

What could you expect after years of teachers who would always arrange to send him to the principal, out on bucket duty, scrubbing erasers or otherwise getting him out of the way while the rest of the class practiced their martial arts and weapon techniques?

Iruka had put a stop to that, but by then the damage had already been done, and Naruto, having none of the basics, had tried to compensate by sheer enthusiasm and bloody minded determination, as he had in so many other areas of his life.

Well, now Naruto knew better than anyone that guts and determination didn't make up for having no real skill. And really, he'd already sent thousands of untrained clones up against trained fighters only to have them evaporate like soap bubbles before the skilled guy.

No, all he could really do was waste a skilled fighter's time. Even with all of his basic ninja techniques fully mastered, thanks to Ebisu, all he could really do was waste more of the guy's time. He wasn't presenting any danger to the enemy ninja he fought, even when he fought for real.

It was depressing, but another thing Naruto had learned was that you could not correct a situation until you accepted what it really was, no matter how much you might not want to face it.

And being nothing more than a punching bag on a battlefield was something he felt had to be corrected, and soon!

Taking a hit wasn't so serious a weakness for most people using the Shadow Clone, because taking a hit in combat was usually a Very Bad Thing. Getting a kunai stuck in your chest was a big deal, whether or not you were a clone. So most fighters could go a long time before taking a hit at all. They'd learned to avoid it. It was an integral part of knowing how to fight well.

But Naruto didn't know how to fight at all, not with any style, anyway. He'd always plowed forward, shrugging off hits and damage to go smack his enemy. No wonder his clones didn't last long!

So he began a plan of attending sets of drills where he practiced with some Academy students while under a Transformation disguise as they got taught basic combat techniques at classes Naruto had somehow never been invited to. All he had to know was who was out sick that day and hadn't bothered to tell anyone - even if he had to arrange the sick day by tying up the students in question himself.

First off he did this with the poorest students in the lowest grades, that way his own ignorance did not stand out at all. Then, as he gained some degree of competence he replaced better and better, and older and older pupils.

After he'd done that enough to have a decent grasp of the basics, he would use disguises to impersonate top students and approach teachers for special one-on-one training.

It embarrassed him that one of those top students was Konohamaru. But the kid had been having personal instruction under Ebisu for years. Actually, on that note he deliberately sought out Ebisu disguised as Konohamaru a few times to help get a handle on the basics, because if there was one thing he had learned it was that Ebisu taught basics relentlessly and well. Although he got a little ashamed at how surprised and pleased the special jonin got that his prize pupil Konohamaru was listening intently for once.

That embarrassment behind him, he sought out Iruka as himself for similar treatment. It shocked the chunin how much his former pupil had improved, so Naruto told him he'd been seeking private lessons, which, in a way, was true.

But even so, there was only so much those two would teach him while still believing he was the person he was passing himself off as (even himself).

Still, even after months wherein he'd exhausted all of what the ninja academy could do to teach about armed and unarmed fighting, that still only brought him up to where a genin should be. Hey, it was miles above where he'd been before, and it was a top-notch rookie genin he'd ended up impersonating at the end, the best in the academy, so that's where his skill level topped out as that was where he'd exhausted this opportunity for instruction.

But that skill level still wasn't going to make much of a difference against the sort of things he'd been having to fight against.

In fact, just to see, he tried his new skills out on Orochimaru, and the Snake Sannin didn't even notice the change. Even the charge of a thousand skilled genin did not phase him any more than the previous charges of a thousand unskilled berserkers. Either way he'd cut them down like grass.

But that wasn't the point.

No, the point of this whole exercise was still on exploiting what the generous townspeople would give to the Uchiha, usually without question, and glad for the opportunity to do so.

And, well, no one who was capable of teaching fighting arts would believe that Sasuke wasn't already a skilled genin. So, now HAVING the fighting skills a proper genin should, and that Sasuke had been using months ago, Naruto was in a position to approach instructors and ask for training.

It was sickening how easily he got it, too.

However, just as he was on the cusp of great success he hit a wall and his hopes came crashing down on him. Because the really good instructors noticed something that the ones at the academy never did - Naruto had never internalized those lessons in the way a good fighter had to.

Fighting was a very physical art. In order to be good at it, the body itself had to know what it was doing. But due to the endless repeats, nothing physical stayed with him. He couldn't condition his body, nor could he train reflexes.

And that was a problem, because the body needed know what it was going to do. Naruto had trained his mind until it did, until it knew it very well, but that wasn't good enough. At that level he was still thinking about what he had to do to get it right. No, to be good at a physical skill like martial arts required the body itself to have conditioned reflexes so the mind didn't have to think about every step and motion along the way.

You'd never get any real speed or free up the mind to think tactically until the complex motions of the actual forms, the stances, punches, blocks and so on, were automatic.

The really good instructors wouldn't touch him until he had that, no matter who's face and form he wore, or how perfect the disguise was. They could tell the moment they started teaching him that he was missing that basic and essential element. And even the good ones who stuck with him after that discovery would think only of how to teach it to him.

That meant practice, practice, practice, endlessly repeating the proper forms. Only, in Naruto's case, after a reset his muscles wouldn't recall a bit of it. He wasn't sore or tired, but his muscles wouldn't retain the benefit either. And sadly, without that, he was as good as he was going to get, at least as far as the fighting arts were concerned. He wasn't even half as good as he could have been at the same level of knowledge, if only he'd been able to practice in ways that could effectively train his body.

In fact one of those teachers told him straight out that he'd be twice as good as he was now, using only what he already knew, if only his body knew it all as well as his mind did. The teacher had been trying to encourage him, as twice as good as the top academy student (whom he'd been impersonating to get his instruction of late) was almost as good as a rookie chunin ought to be, which would put him in the ballpark of where he wanted to be, because he was still taking that test.

But instead of encourage him, it ended up having the opposite effect.

Naruto had been basing so many hopes on his infinite ability to achieve, using repeats to improve and get better, overcoming all of his former problems and become a better ninja, that to run into a barrier he couldn't cross, on something so basic and fundamental to all of his goals, was difficult not to be shattered by. It was made especially bad by the fact that he'd always fancied himself a close combat ninja, one who'd go right in there and mix it up with an enemy, and his main strategy and primary technique all reflected this.

Then to be faced with this, having hit an uncrossable ceiling on his martial arts talents just when he was beginning to feel he could be good at it, and the sure knowledge that if he wanted to improve further he'd have to abandon further progress on that one path and reinvent himself as a ninja.

It was a crushing blow to his self esteem, and merited a Hinata day or two back to back just to recover from the hurt of it. Even so, he'd had to cry a bit before he could get over it and accept his new handicap.

By the time he'd hit the same limit on his musical studies he was almost resigned to it, having somewhat expected it. But it still hurt. So he still took a week off of any serious training to have a prank vacation to make up for it.

Luckily, he could still learn chakra techniques and ninja powers, as those didn't seem to be hurt by a lack of body memory.

I I I

Naruto had real trouble reinventing himself. It was not that he couldn't think of other types of ninja, but that he'd always been aiming to be Hokage, and a Kage level ninja couldn't afford any major weaknesses.

Weaknesses like, oh, having genin-level martial arts.

Still, he didn't give up hope that he could improve them eventually. It just wasn't going to happen during this time loop thingy. After that, he could go forward with his original plans to impersonate Sasuke to get people to teach him. He'd just have to be more careful not to get caught doing it, as he didn't want to be a Kage-level MISSING ninja!

No, okay, that was sounding too risky. Maybe he could somehow arrange to find a person who was willing to teach him despite being a demon container. That would prove better in the long run.

But that was getting distracted from his immediate goals. A Hokage had to be strong in many areas, and martial arts was only one. He could and would deal with that later. For right now, there were plenty of other weaknesses he could be working on improving with the opportunities at hand.

For example, there were ninja medics, ninja who focused on special moves or secret powers, elemental wielders and even illusion specialists.

Getting people to teach him cool special moves had been a goal all along, and it hadn't been turning up much. So it seemed best to look to other areas, at least until something opened up.

Other than the basic Clone technique, Naruto knew next to nothing about illusions, except what Ebisu had said about his Transformation not having those same vulnerabilities.

He knew that they required power (something he had a lot of), imagination (another area in which he was gifted) and skill. Well, of the lot, the only area he wasn't already well supplied in was skill, and that could be remedied. The only thing now was some instructions to follow, and he could get started.

And, it just so happened that one of those people the Hokage was regularly sending him off to learn under was Kurenai, who was an illusion specialist.

Feeling buoyed up by this new hope, Naruto bounced up out of bed and set off to go see Kurenai.

I I I

Holding a letter from the Hokage in her hands, the illusion mistress was speaking in a somewhat resigned tone of voice. "The problem, Uzumaki, is that not everyone can learn to use illusions, certainly not the higher ranking ones. You need a good imagination, which I'm sure you have, but also good chakra control, which I'm just as sure you don't."

The boy took a deep breath and responded reasonably, "Are you sure you can't give me some test? I've got the basic Clone fully mastered, and without the use of seals. I'm willing to work hard," he pled.

The jonin sighed. She hated giving kids bad news, but this one practically pled for it. "Okay, show me your Clone."

He did, and she was impressed. It appeared before she'd even finished asking and the kid HADN'T used any handseals to do it! The tiniest wisp of smoke was the only sign of its appearance, and without that she would've suspected the kid of having already hid a Clone around a corner just waiting for her to ask before bringing it out.

"I'm... impressed." She nodded her head. "That's as good a clone as I've ever found. The problem is all of the other illusions are at least a full rank higher. How good is your chakra control, really?"

"Above average!" he told her earnestly, leaving out the 'barely' part of that Ebisu had tacked on when he'd told him his grade, because when he did tack it on she'd turn him down based on that.

Of course, he'd been about as low on control as you could get before the whole time loop thing, and since she didn't know about the loops, but HAD heard about his abysmal control through the jonin grapevine, she didn't believe what he'd said, thinking he was just trying to butter her up.

"Show me," she told him straight out.

"How?" he pled, and when she began to look at him askance he blurted, "The leaf floating exercise? Sure! No problem. I can do wall and water walking too, if you want me to!"

Plainly doubtful, she motioned for him to continue, and so he took a fresh leaf out of his pouch before causing it to hover above his forehead, where he held it with only minor spins or wobbles.

It was good, but not good enough.

Kurenai was a little surprised. "You were right. You do have above average chakra control, if only barely." She didn't see him hide his wince as she stood up. "But when I said good control I meant it. Sorry, Uzumaki, but I really do need a student to have good control, or I'd just be wasting my time."

"Waste one hour? Just one hour?" He pled with her again, this time clasping his hands together and dropping to his knees, making the jonin feel terrible about it as she shook her head and departed, leaving Naruto alone.

The boy sighed, dropping his pose and feeling depressed.

This conversation had been the product of numerous repeats where he'd been trying to convince her and learning how to play her reactions to gain the best of all possible chances. Not even showing her his unique Transformation helped, as she was able to pick it out as 'not an illusion' right off the bat, and she was only going to qualify him based on illusions, or better chakra control than he had. He'd asked for less time before but the illusion mistress had said she couldn't give a complete lesson in less than an hour.

So, maybe illusions would have to wait a while?

There were also, he reflected, seals. And one of the greatest known masters of that specialty was in Konoha right now, peeping on bath houses. But since Jiraiya would not teach him anything else, he doubted he'd teach him that.

Sigh.

Back to Ebisu for more chakra control, he figured. Since it was still early in the day, and he'd passed the written test (the only times he got a note to see Hinata's teacher from the Hokage were when he'd passed the written test), it would be another two-day wait before he could see the special jonin again if he went by the ordinary schedule.

Not wanting to delay that long, Naruto forged a note to Ebisu from the Hokage. He'd seen it often enough to be able to copy it with his eyes closed. It would get caught later, not having any of the proper security seals, but it could have nonfunctional copies written on, and by the time they caught it he'd have already reset anyway.

I I I

Naruto had been meeting with Ebisu far less often of late. It wasn't that he didn't want to know what the special jonin had to teach him, but that most of the things he taught were ones he'd learned already. The same pointers and exercises to perfect one technique were often the same ones he'd taught him to perfect another.

So, really, he didn't have to visit him as often to get the same value.

What Naruto would do was practice on his own during normal hours of his daily schedule while busy doing other things, checking in periodically with the teaching specialist to make sure he was on the right path. But really, he'd gotten good enough at teaching himself that only rarely did the special jonin have something to say that contradicted what he'd already been doing.

So, it saved time and was less frustrating to go through the exercises and drills and stuff for perfecting his techniques on his own.

Still, it was an old and tired routine even so, showing up and going through the motions of the tests Ebisu gave him, turning this way, then that, lifting one leg, and assuming martial arts stances (which were now substantially improved over what he'd originally done, but that only served to remind him of that barrier he couldn't cross, and irritate him further).

"Very well, tell me what techniques you already know."

Naruto sighed, beginning again the litany. "My basic three are fully mastered, seal-less and almost traceless. Body Flicker likewise. I also know the Shadow Clone, and two unique distraction techniques of my own devising, but you already know about those," the boy finished with a knowing grin.

Ebisu coughed and adjusted his glasses, attempting to master a slight blush. "Yes, well..."

Naruto smiled, that jibe was intentional, and had often saved him from an hour of tests as his teacher made him prove those claims. It also saved him from having to reveal his Transformation was an S-rank solid variant rather than the usual illusionary one.

Apparently deciding something, the teacher casually pulled a scroll out of his pouch and tossed it to him. "Here, that is a treatise on basic elemental tips and chakra control exercises. Why don't you practice that for a while?"

As the special jonin walked off, leaving him, Naruto's face was screwed up in agony and his fists were clenched tightly over the scroll.

'You mean this guy had that with him THE ENTIRE TIME!' It was all he could do not to follow after Ebisu and hit the guy!

Mastering his ire, the boy sat down to memorize that scroll, not just read it, but completely commit the contents to memory so he didn't have to do the whole routine with Ebisu to see it again.

His memory had been substantially improved by his time stuck in all of these repeating days, and it had gotten better faster once he'd unlocked some of his mental power after he'd begun to really read. But, bless the library, there had been a few books in there on enhancing memory.

It was a shinobi village, after all, and they often had need to remember things without writing them down.

So he put himself to work memorizing that scroll, and would call himself done only once he could copy it out by hand from memory.

After that, he'd start to work on those things it described.

He fell asleep in the forest while still studying that scroll.

I I I

For the second time in his life, Naruto opened his eyes to a person bending over him, after having slept all night in a forest, exhausted from too much training.

"Hi, you know it isn't safe to be out here all night. There are bears and things in these forests."

Groaning, Naruto sat up, looking at who'd addressed him. "Tenten, right? On the same team as Neji and Rock Lee?"

The girl was surprised. "Yeah! How'd you know?"

"I make a point of learning about those around me, particularly those who might be stronger than me. It's a good ninja strategy." He waved airily.

The girl laughed, tilting her head to say, "Sorry, but you don't look like a very good ninja, with that grass and leaves in your hair." Tactfully, she didn't state that his reputation as a dead-last was well known around the village, spread by people crowing in delight over how weak he was.

That's okay, he knew it too.

"I thought the point of being a ninja was deception?" the boy shot back with a wide, friendly grin, running fingers through his hair to get the leaves out.

The girl thought about it and conceded, "Okay, what do you know about me?"

The boy shrugged, and sat there, thinking. "Well, obviously I know about your team and jonin instructor, but that's not so much about you, is it? You hang out with Neji a lot and train alongside him because neither of you want to train at the pace that Lee or your instructor set. You specialize in weaponry, and your teacher says that you can hit a bullseye a hundred out of a hundred times. Most of your weapons you summon from scrolls you carry with you, and your most powerful technique is your Rising Twin Dragons, where you jump up high summoning dozens of weapons out of two scrolls which you throw in a really fast barrage at your target."

By now the female genin was surprised. That kid really did know some stuff about her! But Naruto wasn't finished.

He was scratching his head. "Some girls around town say you have a crush on Neji, but don't think he returns it. You want to prove that female ninja can be as strong as males ones, and you admire Tsunade, the Slug Sannin."

"Wow! You really DO know a lot about me!" The girl was impressed, and trying hard to hide both her blush at the crush thing, and her disappointment that her peers felt she wasn't getting through to the Hyuga boy.

Reading her face expertly, Naruto felt a little ashamed and tried to soften the blow. "Don't worry too much about the Neji thing. The guy can be a bit of a pain, but he's really unhappy himself. The Hyuga family have this big thing where the main house are rulers over the branch house, who they treat like slaves. They even put a brand on their forehead, a seal that can kill them if they disobey. Neji's father was the twin of the clan head, but because he was born a few seconds later he got stuck in the branch house. He resents Hinata because he doesn't think she is strong enough to be in the main house. And then his dad got sacrificed to save the life of his twin, who is her father. So, yeah, he's got issues."

He tried to finish off with a merry chuckle, but it came out sounding nervous.

Tenten's eyes were wide. How did he know all this? She'd been a teammate of Neji's for over a year now and never heard any of this!

"I'm... kinda dating Hinata right now," Naruto concluded lamely to cover the question he could see in her eyes. "The whole thing upsets her."

Concluding that he had to be right, girls WERE more talkative than boys, the girl relaxed, then changed the subject. "So what are you doing out here all alone?"

Happy to be back on a safe topic, and deciding he could even tell the truth, Naruto held up the scroll he'd been studying. "Oh, training to be a better ninja! I don't have many techniques, and this was supposed to help me! I guess I got so tired reading it that I fell asleep! Hehehe."

She smiled at him.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Oooh! A cliffhanger! Well, not really. The scene got split because I'd hit the word limit I'd set for these chapters. But this is a good spot, if I were to abandon this story forever, to leave you all to chew your fingernails until the end of time!

Well, okay, I'm not that cruel.


	7. Chapter 7

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seven

by Lionheart

I I I

Tenten turned out to be a wealth of information on useful techniques no one had ever taught the village pariah. Like Naruto, she didn't have many special ninja powers, but she did have her signature technique of storage seals.

Like Naruto, the girl was something of a combat expert, although ranged instead of melee. And, also like Naruto, the one power she did have made her more effective at her specialty. But where he spammed a battle with clones to augment his effectiveness, she used storage seals on scrolls to carry far more weaponry than she could otherwise lift, much less control.

But both of them were combat multipliers, making them better at that which they could already do. He threw more punches, and she threw more weapons thanks to their signature techniques.

And yet, it was one of those sorts of situations where each one could add to the other.

"Hey, Tenten? How about we teach each other our moves?"

"You mean, 'I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours?'" she giggled.

"Err, something like that." He looked away, embarrassed. "It just struck me, you know? How my technique and yours could add to each other, 'cause a shadow clone can throw loads of weapons, too. So, in a way, we'd both get the best out of each of them if we added our techniques together."

"Yah, that makes sense," she agreed.

"Great!" he agreed, then with a bamph of smoke after forming a handseal, a clone of him appeared and started to write. "I'll have him write down the Shadow Clone technique so you can study it at your leisure. Now you go."

"Okaay," the girl blinked. "I guess that works."

The boy shrugged. "Well, it took me a couple of hours to learn Shadow Clone and they tell me I'm exceptionally fast, that most take weeks. I'll be glad to help you study it later, but I think you'll need some time to look it over."

"Okay!" she chirruped far more happily. "So let's get started. Do you have a blank scroll on you?"

"We can use the backside of this one. It's blank." He held up Ebisu's scroll.

"That works!" she laughed, and they got started.

Naruto had always had an exceptionally fast learning curve once someone actually taught him something, and Tenten was a good teacher. Soon he had the basics mastered, he didn't even need a repeat to get that far. In fact, they hadn't used up all of their morning before the test started. And that raised his ninja techniques from five to six, although seals were in a special category that people didn't often list when they counted special moves.

Still, that didn't make him any less glad to have it.

And the way Tenten explained it, storage seals were massively useful, too. You could carry camping gear and supplies on long missions, spares for your normal equipment (like clean clothes) and even hot food, all without weighing yourself down or losing speed. It made most of the worst aspects of being on long assignments almost not difficult at all!

It was, in its own way, just as helpful as being able to create a million copies of yourself. One of those force multiplier thingies. Only, since they each gave benefit a different way the bonuses stacked.

And, in a little less than an hour, Naruto was doing well enough at it to get by. Now that he knew the difference between a crude performance and a refined technique, he wouldn't call himself an expert at storage seals, and Tenten most certainly was. But she taught him well enough to get by on.

Reading together and discussing the Shadow Clone scroll he'd made for her took another ten minutes, before she agreed she wasn't ready to try that just yet, as it did sound pretty difficult. However, they still had a great deal of time in what she'd allotted for her morning training schedule, so he joined her for that and started learning how to throw weapons effectively.

They covered only a tiny bit of that at the academy, just enough to get you started, really. Also, they stuck primarily with the kunai, that all-purpose ninja tool, apparently thinking that anyone who wanted to know more could learn on their own.

Tenten had. That girl could throw anything, even things that ordinarily could not be employed effectively as thrown weapons, like sickles and long swords.

She taught him a lot, cheerful all the while, but Naruto had a long way to go before he'd be anywhere near as good, and probably never could be quite as good given the muscle memory limits he had to work under.

Still, he could get somewhere in that skill, and he intended to. Even if he could only have the basics that was still going to be useful. After all, he could only crowd so many clones in punching range around a target at once, but if they stood back and threw weapons, well, they could do more. So he made certain he knew how to train further in this by himself before they moved on.

She even dropped hints that a person could steer weapons with wires, and that sounded fascinating. After all, a number of very deadly things could be done with wires, the trick was getting an opponent to blunder into them. But if the wires delivered themselves? Attached to weapons? Double bonus!

He'd have to learn more about that. In fact, he'd just found a new specialty he wanted to study. And, what's more, she seemed eager to teach him, almost surprised that anyone would value her skill enough to want to learn it!

That any girl so talented could have confidence problems amazed him, but no longer surprised him. Look at Hinata! Loveliest, nicest girl in their class, and all but ignored by all and sundry.

He wished he could say he wasn't equally to blame for that.

"Hey, Naruto?" Tenten asked as they were walking away after training.

"Yeah?" He turned his attention to the girl he was rapidly becoming fond of. So few had treated him decently, let alone shared their techniques with him so readily, that he knew he would be spending a great deal of time with her in the future. Pity that she wouldn't remember it.

"That seal thing the Hyuga put on the branch house members?" she asked. "When one of them gets married, do they put it on their wives?"

"I dunno," the boy answered honestly. "They might, but I'd have to find out to know for sure."

"Could you? It's kinda important to me."

"Sure! Um, I know they put it on little kids, though. I think Neji got his when he was about four, or six, or so."

Tenten scowled at the thought of anyone doing that to children. No way was someone going to enslave her kids! But, darn it! If Neji was a slave, then Neji couldn't stop them from doing that to his kids. Which meant, if she didn't want it to happen to her kids...

She couldn't marry Neji.

Tenten sighed, giving up on THAT dream! And it hurt, too.

Then she perked up. "Say! Want to come back to my place? You've got to get something to eat before we go to that training area 44 thing later today, and I feel I owe you one for all of this information."

"Sure!" he agreed, then sobered instantly on thinking about the test. "Oh, and Tenten? About our test? It's a week-long survival mission inside a forest where all of the genin are trying to kill each other. Each team starts with one half of the mission requirement, and you have to get the other from some other team. No holds barred. There's going to be a lot of death. At least half of those who enter are going to fail, and most who fail will probably die."

Her face hardened. That was hard tactical data, priceless in ninja terms. "Thanks, Naruto."

"But there's more!" he cautioned. "The teams from Sand and Sound are particularly deadly. Both have attacks you've never seen before. The Sound guys you could probably take if your whole team hit them hard and fast, but they're no ordinary genin. The Sand team..." he shuddered. "They'll kill you. I've seen Gaara, the lead on the Sand team, fight, and he could take down Lee even if he'd opened all the Celestial Gates he could. He's no genin, unleashed at full power he's closer to Kage-rank. Not even Neji would stand a chance."

By now the girl was done being surprised that he had such information on her team. It seemed like he was right, he had been disguising his skill and secretly gathering information.

So she was all ninja as she asked, "What does he do?"

"He animates sand. I know it doesn't sound like much, but he can move a few tons of that stuff like it was a part of him, reaching and grabbing, crushing and killing. If it touches you, it's over. It also forms a shield around him. Your weapons would be useless. Not even Lee's best punches could penetrate all of the way. And the girl on that team is also bad news for you. She's a wind mistress, and has ability to knock flying things out of the air - things like thrown weapons. She'd be able to shut down even your Rising Twin Dragons. If you do have to fight her, do it some other way than by throwing things."

She nodded, absorbing the tactical brief and analyzing it already. "And the third?"

"Kankuro," he responded. "A puppet user. Basic strategy is to hide and let his puppet do all of the fighting. He'd be much less of a threat if you could tell which was him and which was his puppet, but he's expert at making that hard. It's strong and got built in weapons, and can take a fearsome beating. If you could fight the guy himself, though, he isn't too bad. Best bet would be to strike him hard by surprise, before he deploys it. But considering the rest of his team, I'd avoid combat altogether. He's great at throwing delays and diversions at people, and the other two would finish you off. The girl is nearly unbeatable at a distance, and Gaara is suicide to face at close to mid ranges. Together, their team hasn't got any exploitable weaknesses."

Again she was nodding. "Hey, Naruto? Do you mind if I just drop you by at my place while I get some errands done? You can wash up, and I'll be back to get you that breakfast I promised, I just have some things to do first."

"Sure! No problem!" he chirruped gladly.

They both knew she'd be running off to give her team his warnings. What he didn't know was that she had a keen enough memory to repeat it word for word, even complete with tonal inflection.

She'd trained to be in infiltration once, briefly, before they'd told her that female infiltrators usually had to sleep with their marks. But one of the skills of an infiltrator was to know memory tricks like that, and she'd gotten them.

Naruto wasn't the only one to use those memory techniques taught by books in the library. It was a shinobi village, and they had many who had an interest in remembering things without writing them down.

Of course, in the perverse way of things, she would tell her team and Lee would go tell Sakura, who'd tell Sasuke, but only after asking Ino if she had heard, and Ino would tell her team, while Neji would feel obliged to inform the main house, who'd instruct Hinata, who'd tell her team, and so the rumors would spread like wildfire through Konoha practically word for word, until at the meeting outside the Forest of Death every Konoha genin (and some few from other villages who'd kept an ear to the ground) was outfitted for a long stay in wilderness terrain, carrying extra weapons and in some cases armor.

Many would be carrying a written form of Naruto's warning that someone had copied onto paper and distributed, some even falling into other hands.

There was also a wide gap around the Sound and Sand teams, with people eying the Sand trio with respectful hostility out of the corners of their eyes. Those few who didn't already know what was up noticed and asked, so got whispered to, and the circle around the Sand team grew wider.

Some specifics hadn't made the rounds. So rather than Gaara could "take down Lee even if he'd opened all the Celestial Gates" it was transmitted as "he could take down a jonin, easily," while the Neji part was simply dropped.

Still, it was an effective message, and people were already plotting out evasion strategies.

They were ninja. If something was too tough to fight, you went around it just like any other obstacle to your mission.

I I I

"I've got to find Gaara. I must grow by defeating strong opponents."

"Uh, you know his powers are all based on a bloodline, don't you?" Naruto asked, disturbed by this change. "There's nothing there you could copy. I've seen him, he just stands there while his sand moves and kills people."

"You've seen him?" Sakura asked, disbelieving.

"Yah," Naruto shrugged. "It was like Haku and his ice mirrors, only a thousand times worse. That Gaara guy gets off on killing. From what I've heard even his own village is terrified of him - and that includes his siblings, who make up his team. That guy likes killing the same way you like Sasuke. It defines his whole being. Our Hokage might not even be able to take that guy down."

"Really?" Sakura, at least, was frightened.

Sasuke was not. "hn. I've read the reports, and don't believe them. He's just a genin. With my Sharingan I could destroy him."

Naruto blew out a long sigh, rolling his eyes. "It's your funeral."

I I I

Finding Gaara's team was easy. If Naruto hadn't already had transformed clones following all of the teams in, he would have now. The one following the grass genin, the ones Orochimaru and his cronies had replaced, died as usual, but in the ongoing effort to track him, there was always another placed just where the last one had lost him.

There had to be something the sannin could sense about them, because he never failed to notice one of his clones for long. And he'd change course in order to evade the emplaced ones.

He was, Naruto reflected, a master at this. An evil, sadistic and sick looking bastard, but also a master ninja.

Still, of all of the things Gaara was, hyper-aware of his surroundings he was not. The Sand team wasn't even particularly on their guard, waltzing in like a pack of lions at a sheep festival.

They had good reason to, the comparison was an apt one. No team Naruto was aware of (well, except the sannin, but he didn't count) could present a credible threat to them.

What was unusual was that this time around the other teams seemed to be aware of that, and were departing from their usual schedules to avoid the Sand team whenever and wherever they made contact.

This was starting to frustrate Gaara to no end. He wanted death and blood, and by gum he was going to get it!

Fortunately for the homicidal insomniac and his two increasingly nervous siblings, who'd begun to fear (and rightfully so!) that Gaara might turn on them just to sate a bit of his bloodthirst, Sasuke was enough of a egomaniac loon that he actually thought he could beat them, despite all of the testimony to the contrary.

No, to Sasuke's mind there was no other form of life half as good as an Uchiha. So, being naturally superior to all other creatures out there, he was going to take down their best and impress them all! Just to show them!

A suicidal form of egomania as there had been plenty of Uchihas killed in battle against those same 'lesser creatures' before. After all, there had been a whole clan of them at one point, and never had one of them been Hokage, or called the best ninja of the village.

The Sharingan had weaknesses, not the least of which seemed to be the habit of those who had it to overestimate themselves. Sasuke himself had been so paralyzed from killer intent alone by Zabuza that he'd been ready to commit suicide on the spot until Kakashi reassured him. But that didn't stop his arrogance now. It was as if he could no longer even recall that event.

And what made matters worse, Sasuke's feelings of innate superiority and invincibility were only exceeded by Sakura's feelings on the same subject, namely, that her crush was superior to all other creatures and invincible.

Between the two of them they created a very dangerous delusion, that led very quickly to Team 7 standing on one side of a clearing, with the Sand Siblings on the other.

And Gaara hadn't killed anything all day. He was feeling overdue. His tone was very low and level, a danger sign to all who knew him, when the container for the one-tailed beast said, "You are here to validate my existence."

Naruto rolled his eyes when Sasuke walked forward to pose and brag, "I am Sasuke Uchiha! I care nothing for your existence!" Sasuke shot a hard glare over his shoulder at Naruto whom he'd overheard whisper 'truer words were never spoken'.

Turning back to face the Sand team, this time with a deeper scowl on his face, the Uchiha bragged. "I am going to defeat you and claim what is mine by right! As a chunin of Konoha I will have more power to defeat my brother, and then I will revive my clan!"

"Go Sasuke!" Sakura bounced up and down twice, cheering.

"Oy! Temari!" Naruto shouted through cupped hands. "Do you want to step aside and talk with me while your brother slaughters my teammate? You know Gaara's going to win, so I have no point in fighting you, since my team will be disqualified anyway. What do you say?"

"NARUTO!" Sakura tried to bonk him on the head, only for the blond guy to dodge her attempt, laughing. Sasuke was glaring at him in disgust, while the Sand team didn't know what to say.

Already Naruto was skipping a significant distance over to the side, pulling out the dining room set he'd made for himself and putting a feast on the surface. "Hey, Kankuro! You're invited, too! There's more here than she and I can eat! I'd ask Gaara to the table but know I'd die before I could leave it again. So I think if he wants to eat he's going to have to wait until I can scurry off into the forest like a frightened rabbit. I don't feel like being crushed to death today."

Once a check with Gaara proved he didn't care the Sand siblings left his side, smirking, to join Naruto at the meal.

"Thanks," Kankuro picked up a slice of roast and popped it into his mouth, chewing for a moment before he added potatoes and gravy, vegetables and juice to his palate.

No one else would have noticed the slight signal he gave to Temari, who only then chose to seat herself, but Naruto had figured the puppet master would send in his toy first. He hadn't known it could test food for poison; evidently it could. But, strangers in a strange village and all, he guessed he couldn't blame them for being prepared.

Out of curiosity, he watched to see if he could tell when the real Kankuro would switch in for his dummy. The food was excellent, and Temari was making no secret of that as she joined the Konoha genin in digging in.

Out on the playing field, a drama was beginning to develop.

"Who is your brother? I will kill him for you." Gaara softly stated as he stared at his most recent prey.

"Only I get to slay my brother!" Sasuke snarled. "Only an UCHIHA can kill an Uchiha!"

"Go Sasuke!" Sakura pumped a fist.

"So, what kind of craftsmen do you guys have in Sand? I know you can't grow crops there, so you import most of your food, so I figure you have something to export," Naruto conversed reasonably, after pouring himself some juice.

"Steel, mostly," Kankuro chomped with his mouth full of rolls. "We've got tons of the stuff near the surface, just covered by sand, metals of all kinds actually. Our weapons are good enough most of you guys in Konoha use 'em."

"Really? I didn't know that. Where do you get the carbon from? I know iron comes out of the ground, but..."

"Shh!" Temari hushed them. "Give your teammate some respect. Those are his last words out there, after all."

A vein was pumping on Sasuke's head at not being the center of drama. He chose to ignore the sideshow for now and focus on the real opponent, and the glory it would gain him to defeat him.

Then Naruto had to take even that away by cupping his hands and shouting, "His brother is Itachi Uchiha! Now get on with it, or are you planning to BORE him to death!"

Sasuke's fists were trembling and he nearly broke his staring contest with Gaara to go over and clobber his teammate.

Sakura was not so restrained.

"A lot of it's in the ash we get as a byproduct from running our forges. We do have mines for coal, otherwise we'd be stuck importing wood, and the prices would break us." Kankuro continued, as if he'd not been interrupted, having his dummy trip and immobilize Sakura, muffling her screams as she shouted over the outrage of it all. "Actually, it's hard enough as it is."

"I can imagine," Naruto empathized. "And can I just say how impressed I am that in spite of how closely I'd watched you, I hadn't caught the change of position between master and puppet?"

"Thank you," Kankuro demurred. "Can you pass the butter?"

"Certainly. Oh, yes, I'd forgotten dairy products don't ship well. You must not see many of them in Sand."

"More than you'd think," the puppet master said around a mouthful of buttered potato.

Temari couldn't help herself and broke down laughing helplessly at the sight of it all, this casual conversation over the backdrop of her brother's murder!

Gaara himself was finding this a unique experience, which is why he'd not rushed things further. But no point in waiting any more. He spoke softly to Sasuke, "I will kill your brother, because you will be unable to."

"No! It is my destiny! I MUST defeat Itachi!" Sasuke shouted.

"No," Gaara disagreed. "You are mistaken. You have no destiny. You are already dead."

That was when the Uchiha felt what was going on at last. Sometime during this conversation, sand had crept up over his toes, climbed up his legs and was entering his shorts. At the very moment he noticed it, the pool of sand around his ankles made a lunge and captured the lower half of his body.

He struggled, but he was already tightly bound, his hands trapped beside him as the sand lifted him into the air.

Gaara's voice continued soft. "You will not be reviving your clan, either."

Blood spurted from the trapped Uchiha as Gaara's sand crushed Sasuke's balls.

"YES!" Naruto pumped a fist. "I am DEFINITELY making sure THIS happens again!"

Even his tablemates stared at him oddly after that pronouncement.

Moments later, Sasuke too, had met his demise, his Sharingan useless against Gaara's sand, having already been trapped before he was aware of danger.

"So," Naruto turned back urbanely to his conversation. "What kind of fan is that, Temari? Is it special made? Where do you get them done?"

Later, marching away from the strange luncheon, having given up their scroll and heading toward the exits while the Sand Siblings went on to the tower, Sakura was glaring holes in him, refusing to speak.

"Oh, give it a rest," the boy chided. "I didn't actually bring my dining room set with me today," Naruto admitted. "So instead I transformed a few clones into replicas of them. If Sasuke had won it would have been easy to detain or give the others crippling injuries, since they were already, literally, in my laps at the time I'd be revealing my trap."

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Yes, Naruto has grown a little odd after so many resets. He'd never give up, so don't go expecting him to break and start killing himself, but stress does strange things to people.

For those who are interested, from the meeting with Kurenai in the last chapter until the now was all one day, no resets.


	8. Chapter 8

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Eight

by Lionheart

I I I

The next day, after the reset, walking passed the pair of disguised chunin on his way to the written test as usual, but thinking about the events of the last time through, Naruto paused and asked, pointing toward the door. "Okay, I know that is an illusion, and you two are chunin. So how do you do that?"

The pair of disguised chunin snorted. "What? The door? It's called the Veil technique, and with it you can cloak small areas in a different appearance."

"So, how do you do it?" he pressed with just enough eagerness to get their egos stroked.

One of them shrugged. "It's not hard, only a D-rank technique. Mostly you just take a standard Transformation and project it outward. You have to stay nearby or it falls to pieces, and it costs more chakra to keep active. But it can be useful to fool clueless goons, like most of you hopefuls."

"And the handseals?"

"Here," one of them showed him. "Now get out of the way and don't clue in anyone else. We have a job to do, weeding out the unfit."

I I I

Having liked the last set of events he'd set in motion, Naruto decided to repeat it for a while. That meant passing the test and forging a note to Ebisu so he could get the scroll so he wouldn't look odd to Tenten when she woke him up in the morning after sleeping outside in the forest.

They'd train together, and pretty soon he had the basics of all of her tricks down. All that was left from that point was to refine and practice them, but doing so he got to be good friends to her.

She didn't remember him past any resets, obviously, but as he learned to like her and know her better he was able to learn her buttons and impress her and build a surprisingly good relationship in a fairly short time.

While obviously not in the same boat as him, Tenten was a very lonely girl and eager to have more friends. He found it easy to respond to that, and soon was seeking her out for more than just training.

There were also those conversations, learning everything he could from the Sand team. And the entertainment value of seeing Sasuke's balls crushed over and over somehow never grew tiresome! It just kept getting funnier every time he saw it! He'd even spooked Gaara once over how HARD he'd laughed while Sasuke got gelded!

But it was all for training purposes, really. He had to repeat it all that way, because... uhm..? Ah! Yes, there was no other way to get the Sand siblings to the table, that was it. Useful information and all.

It was just a side benefit that seeing the psychopathic insomniac creeped out by HIM was a hoot all on it own!

But forming a few hundred shadow clones into a Harem variant that had them all dressed like cheerleaders, and having them all loudly celebrate the Sand demon's victory jumping about waving pompoms wasn't too much, now was it?

No, there had been some times in there where he'd really disturbed Gaara.

As far as training, things were going swimmingly there, between Tenten's help and Ebisu's scroll. Plus, he also had a significant personal project on his own he was fitting in on the side.

Learning how to project a Transformation technique when what he did wasn't a standard transformation was a fair bit of work. He tried his own as a basis and it didn't work, or at least it wasn't possible given what knowledge he had.

Luckily, at least no one was out to stop him from learning an Academy level technique, so he could go ask Iruka or look it up himself to learn the basic Transformation, the real one this time, in addition to his own version.

For simplicity's sake, he decided to call the academy version the Disguise technique within himself, because that was all it did, and his own Shapeshift, as that was equally descriptive.

Picking up the Disguise technique was easy by now, as was perfecting it, as he already knew all of the ins and out and tricks for it, having done it all already for his own, much harder version.

His improved chakra control over his academy days helped a fair bit, too.

From there it really wasn't too hard to take it that one step further and get a version of the Veil going. Knowing the internal workings of the Disguise, as he did, made the rest of it seem easy. His experience with the Shadow Clone also helped him quite a lot, and his mastery of the basic Clone also pushed his knowledge along, as that one already dealt with a projected illusion.

Really he found it so easy he was surprised that it wasn't harder. Oh, there were a great many details to work out yet, blurred edges and all of the things Ebisu had named, but he was able to get SOMETHING going quickly.

And that gave him a significant hope, as between his Disguise and the new Veil he'd have three illusions to show off to Kurenai. Mastering them wouldn't be too difficult after all he'd already done, and with three good, solid illusions to show her instead of one he'd have a greatly increased chance to convince her to accept him as a student, even if just for one hour.

One hour, that he could be infinitely repeating.

No, his chances for acquiring a specialty were definitely looking up. Even if it would be months of work on his own to get these perfect, he now had a route to follow that he could work on that led to a definite hope of success.

It would have been enough by itself to keep him interested, but there was also training alongside Tenten in the mornings.

Also, at the same time, he was getting to know Temari and Kankuro more on the other end of that same schedule, having bizarre lunches with them while Gaara squeezed Sasuke's balls to mush before crushing him to death, and the Sand siblings were also surprisingly good people, once you got to know them. Perversely, they were almost as lonely as Naruto was, and for almost exactly the same reasons. On that surprising basis, he found himself building something of the same odd friendship he had with Tenten with them.

Naruto learned to love Kankuro's sense of humor, and found flirting with Temari so fun that once he'd delayed and delayed at the table until before he knew it Gaara was sitting there with them.

Being within arm's reach of the deadliest person outside of Orochimaru he'd yet met was something both frightfully terrifying and yet strangely normal after all that had happened.

Really, it was exactly like he was just playing in a movie instead of feeling he was there for real. And, to him, it kind of was, as no matter what happened, the next day, all the players would be back to their starting positions, ready for another take. Plus, he got a good amount of valuable information out of the sand siblings. Who were, admittedly, amused by his attitude towards his teammate's death. So he might as well have some fun with it when he could.

Although it was creepy when Gaara whispered across the table to him, "Are you here to validate my existence?"

Then the blond from Konoha found a new depth of bravery he hadn't suspected in himself and reached across the table, offering his hand to the red haired boy. When the short psychopath didn't seem to know what to do with it, the Konoha genin offered him a grin as well. "Here, take my hand."

Strangely, Gaara did so, placing his own in the proffered grasp. The demon container from Sand had no fear, as he knew next to nothing could hurt him. The sand shield that protected him was automatic, and even if it were not, he had his sand armor on.

No, this clasping of hands was akin to a mouse asking a serpent to open wide. It gave every advantage to Gaara at no danger to him.

Naruto clasped his hand around the other and smiled, saying, "Gaara, I don't need to die to validate your existence! I can do so as your friend, instead, and I acknowledge you! You are important to me! You are significant, and you can make the world a better place for everyone if you choose to do so!"

Gaara continued to stare at him for a very long time, before releasing his hand and not killing him.

His siblings were shocked speechless, to say the least. Kankuro dropped a fork since he was so stunned he'd forgotten to hold on to it.

Gaara didn't let Naruto leave his side for the rest of that reset.

The next step, Naruto thought, was to find some way of doing that before Gaara killed Sasuke. If he could do that, then they could advance through the test and possibly he could discover something about getting out of this loop!

Of course, that was made more difficult by Sasuke picking fights with Gaara and interrupting his plans to befriend him before anyone died.

I I I

Naruto was so preoccupied by his thoughts of how to discuss things with Gaara before Sasuke died that he forgot the next time to pass on his warning about the test to Tenten, which meant that news did not spread, and Sasuke did not hear it.

Naruto tried to tell him directly, only to not be believed.

So, there they were, getting attacked by Orochimaru as usual when it just got too much to handle, coming as an interruption to all his other plans, as it had.

"Oh, I give up. Just bite the bastard and be done with it. I'm tired of this." Naruto folded his arms, sat down, and pouted.

"Kukukuku!" Orochimaru laughed, before deciding, "Thank you, I believe I will. But aren't you in the least bit worried about my killing your team?"

"Feh. Why should I be?" Naruto started to pick his nose. "They're all useless. Look at little Miss Trembling over there. As near as I can recall, she's never hit anyone in anger except for me, and she does that for me trying to be nice to her. All she does in a fight is stand there and tremble, waiting for her hero to come make it all better, then afterwards she's all proud and boasting as if she'd won the whole thing herself."

Sakura's jaw had dropped open and she stared at Naruto, too shocked to tremble anymore. Shocked, and a little bit afraid, Naruto's loyalty had been the one thing she could always count on in her life, and now he was giving her up to die?

Suddenly she felt very small and vulnerable.

"And that useless waste of flesh you're facing," Naruto pulled out his finger and wiped it on the branch. "He's as pathetic as they come. Every hour of every day since I met him he's spent feeling sorry for himself, and of course all of the girls our age are stupid enough to think that's cute. Everyone gives him anything he asks for and treats him as some kind of hero thanks to the family he was born in - but he's never done anything himself. As soon as he gets faced with anything the least bit hard he gives up, just like now when he was trying to give the scroll to you."

"Oh? Kukukuku, interesting." The Snake Sannin looked back to the boy who had been approaching him to surrender their team's scroll.

The blond genin snorted. "He's pathetic. If something isn't given to him for free by being a stupid Uchiha he doesn't want it, and then he has to go treat everyone else like garbage because he can - he's the Uchiha. Feh. Pathetic. Here we are in a fight for our lives, you're about to kill us all, and what does he do? He's playing 'sorry for himself' again. Heck, he's every bit as wimpy as his fangirl over there. But they're both so stupid they call ME 'Dead-Last' when it's always ME who's pulling them out of these things. But when I do they both instantly claim credit for themselves, as if it was THEIR worthless behavior, standing there waiting for someone to rescue them, that somehow saved the day. Without me, they'd have lost every fight they've ever been in, they'd both be long dead by now, both them AND their teacher, but they have to treat me as if my grades at the academy somehow, mysteriously, make it so my saving their scrawny, pathetic, useless lives in every fight since then doesn't matter. Go ahead, kill them both. They deserve to die."

Sakura, who'd been shocked out of her paralyzing fear enough to listen, winced at every statement. Then she looked over to Sasuke, questions in her eyes. Had she been fooling herself all along? It didn't seem possible, but...

Suddenly Sasuke didn't seem so invincible anymore.

The Uchiha, however, was enraged that ANYONE would DARE speak about him like that! It was a close call, but he elected to attack their enemy instead of Naruto, and when he launched his attack, he actually impressed the snake summoning freak.

So the freak beat him up, bit him, and was gone, leaving them all alive for the first time in what felt like forever.

Naruto was so stunned he nearly fell off the branch he'd been sitting on.

Sakura was torn between mortified, scared and furious.

Sasuke would have been raging mad, but was too busy being comatose and nearly dead. Sakura didn't attack Naruto for only two reasons: dealing with her crush was a higher priority, and she was now scared of him.

Naruto was still blinking. They were alive? Okay, quick, commit what happened to memory so he could do it again!

I I I

Later that same reset, they were both kneeling over Sasuke's feverish and shaking body in a shallow cave made by tree roots when it happened.

"Na..." Sakura cleared her throat painfully. "Naruto? Do you think, maybe after we get out of here, you could take me out?"

He'd been a complete gentleman with Hinata, after all. That lunch date they'd been on together had been very cute.

Surely it couldn't be too bad?

Sakura's reasons were complicated, and she didn't fully understand them herself. Yet suddenly the fear of losing Naruto's support terrified her, and she'd begun to realize that would hurt her, that no one else had been so nice to her, and that she'd been driving him away.

So she'd acted to do what she could to reel him back before it grew too late.

The boy sighed, diverting his eyes to go look out over the rest of the forest. "Sakura, I asked you out once a day, on average, for six years. That's two thousand, one hundred and ninety requests for a date, and each time you turned me down was worse than the last. Sorry, but I'm not interested."

"Oh."

Sakura was devastated. He'd gotten away from her. She didn't know how, or when it had happened, but she had lost him. Her attempt to reel him back had come too late, and she'd missed all of the danger signs of his approaching separation. She felt shame as she realized it had been too late to keep him before she'd even thought to try.

What had she done? Had she been so terrible? Except, well... maybe she had. Looking back on it, she couldn't recall the last time she'd said or done something nice for the blond haired boy.

She hadn't wanted to encourage him, but...

Suddenly she realized that he'd become her foundation. He'd been her one constant, a never ending source of affection bearing her up no matter how life got her down; her ace in the hole against Ino, and something to cheer her up every time Sasuke turned her down - And now she had truly lost him.

She couldn't put to words how much that hurt, or how scary it was to find herself cut free of that support, to suddenly find herself adrift in the world having to face all of the little hurts and Sasuke's rejections on her own.

With a bite out of her heart she realized Naruto hadn't even been calling her Sakura-chan. It had always annoyed her before, but now... she missed it.

Neither drew any attention to the fact that she began to cry behind him. It was an hour or more before she choked out, shyly, "... Naruto?"

"Yeah?" He did not turn to look at her.

She spent a moment shivering over his coldness. "Do you... you know so much I never expected. Do you know any special healing powers? I think Sasuke could really use some help just now."

The blond boy softly sighed. "No, Sakura, I don't."

"Oh," she replied equally softly, her voice tinged with concern on behalf of their fallen comrade, and his plight.

Inwardly, Naruto was thinking, 'Just because I don't know any right now, doesn't mean I won't. Sakura is right. Healing my own wounds real fast isn't an excuse not to have any medical skills, because people around me can get injured. I've been careless, not studying those before. Well, it won't happen again. Before we come to this place again I'll be a medic. Maybe even good enough I can save Sakura from choking on her blood if that happens again.'

Sakura was so wrapped up in her own misery she did not take as good a care of Sasuke as she might have, and he died, the cursed seal having overcome his frail vitality without that tiny extra edge.

Love has a healing power all its own, completely apart from ninja skills, and the focus Sakura had once given to Sasuke had transferred some of her energies to him during those critical hours while the seal was turning his own chakra against itself. No matter how weak or powerful, a person is always equally matched against themselves, and the body paid the price of this battle the cursed seal initiated, usually ending in death.

It may seem a small thing, but that was really the deciding factor in who lived and died upon receiving the cursed seal. Those who had someone to love and care for them lived, as even so tiny a boost was enough to tip the balance, while those who did not died.

Orochimaru was ignorant of this himself, having no idea why one person lived and another died, despite decades of experiments.

Healing techniques, all being chakra based, got turned about the same way as a patient's own chakra supplies and were useless. Love, being made up of an entirely different energy, made up the difference in a way that got around the cursed seal's effect.

However, with Sakura focused on her own misery and suffering, she did not have the total devotion to spare that had been bolstering his constitution that final, extra degree their first time through the forest.

So, Sasuke died, and they reset.

I I I

Naruto started getting severely frustrated.

It did not take him many repeats to discover that it was not his performance that made the difference in whether or not they all survived that fight with Orochimaru.

It was Sasuke.

Naruto could commit everything he had to that fight, or nothing at all, and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. The only thing that mattered was getting Sasuke worked up enough to go all out against the Snake Sannin.

If Sasuke impressed Orochimaru, then the missing ninja wouldn't kill any of them in order to let Sasuke continue on in the chunin exams. Sasuke, like everyone, needed a three man team in order to progress, and as near as Naruto could tell, the freaky snake guy wanted that for some reason.

A bit of trial and error proved that Naruto didn't even have to get sealed during those fights. It happened if he went all out and forced the freak to deal with him, but he didn't have to do that, didn't have to do anything at all.

It was all Sasuke.

Life sucked sometimes.

I I I

"Hey! Kabuto! Wait up!"

The named genin and his team turned around to face the Uzumaki boy, who came running up to catch them, through the crowd leaving after the written test.

"Hey," the boy called out once he got closer. "Kabuto, I need to be a medic ninja. Do you know how I should get started?"

"You? Be a medic ninja? I'm afraid that's not really possible, Naruto. You'd need perfect chakra control, among other things."

Kabuto laughed, but not with any real malice.

Not about to be deterred, Naruto pressed on. "What about that regeneration technique you do that I heard about? How do you do that?"

Still laughing, the silver haired one shook his head. "You know, if I felt there was any chance of you being able to use it, I'd never tell you. But just to show you how impossible it would be, let me show you how it works. Then you can try it yourself, and see how far away you are from doing this, and maybe pick a more reasonable specialty for your talents."

I I I

"Hey! Kabuto! Wait up!"

The named genin and his team turned around to face the Uzumaki boy, who came running up to catch them, through the crowd leaving after the written test.

"Hey," the boy called out once he got closer. "Kabuto, your dad is the chief of Konoha's medical squad isn't he? I was wondering if you could introduce me. I was hoping to pick up some basic stuff to do in an emergency. My team hasn't got a medic on it and that lady who is to give us the next test scares me. I've heard of her reputation."

Kabuto smiled. "It's no problem, Naruto. Why don't I show you some myself? We've got time before we prepare for the next stage of the exam."

I I I

"Hey! Kabuto! Wait up!" the boy called out once he got closer. "Your dad is the chief of Konoha's medical squad, isn't he? I was wondering if you could introduce me? I was hoping for some tips and pointers. I know a little, but my team hasn't got a real medic on it and that lady who is to give us the next test scares me. I've heard of her reputation."

Kabuto smiled. "It's no problem, Naruto. Why don't I show you some myself? We've got time before we prepare for the next stage of the exam."

I I I

"Hey, Kabuto! I've been reading some books on how to be a medic ninja, but I don't feel up to a real challenge yet, and I've heard some rumors about the next stage of our test tomorrow. I'm worried that I might not be able to do enough for my team if anyone gets injured. So, do you think you could point me toward some resources?"

Kabuto smiled. "I could help you myself."

I I I

"Hey, Kabuto! I've been hearing rumors of the next stage of this test, and I've got to say I'm concerned. I'm the only medic my team has got, but I'm only half-trained and my medical techniques stink. I was wondering if you knew someone who could help me."

Kabuto straightened his glasses. "That's very surprising, Naruto. I hadn't heard you had any medical experience at all. But I'll be glad to help you. There is a spare office in the hospital that is usually empty this time of day. We can use the charts and tools there."

I I I

"You really need perfect chakra control to be a good candidate for learning this technique," Kabuto told him.

"Yeah, I know, but the girl on our team has no interest in such things, and I've been elected. So how do you do the technique?"

"Well, it would be easier if you had more knowledge of anatomy."

I I I

"Say, Kabuto. Do you know where the ANBU have their anatomy classes? You know, the ones where they study nerves and pressure points for taking down targets? Kakashi told us about how they train hunter-ninja to do that."

"Yes, of course I know. They do get most of their supplies from the hospital, after all. But why would you be interested in such things?"

"Aw, there was this girl who did this thing on our last mission to induce false death in a target she wanted to capture. Our teacher wants us to look up those points so we can recognize them next time. Personally I think he's just doing it to get out of teaching us anything himself."

I I I

"Well, Naruto, I don't really have time to teach you anything further. My team and I have to get ready for the test tomorrow. But if you still want to learn more, how about I introduce you to my father? He could at least loan you some books. He has an extensive library."

I I I

"So what now? How do I get to be a better medic ninja?"

"I don't know that I'd call you a medic-ninja, Naruto. Your healing techniques are clumsy and unpredictable, frankly I don't know how you got them to work at all given your chakra control isn't half of what it ought to be to even learn them. I know I'd certainly never want to be your patient. However, you've got all of the book knowledge we ask of even our best shinobi healers. In fact you know everything they do. I'm impressed. The only things you lack are chakra control and experience. But if you do go after the latter, you'd better do all of your practicing on missing ninja, because I don't want anyone from Konoha subject to your clumsy attempts!"

Kabuto laughed, but not with any real malice.

Not about to be deterred, Naruto pressed on. "What about that regeneration technique you told me about? How do you do that?"

Still laughing, the silver haired one shook his head. "You know, some secrets are best kept in families, Naruto. My father showed me that one, and I'd rather not be giving it out to anyone else."

I I I

"Hey! Kabuto! Wait up!"

The named genin and his team turned around to face the Uzumaki boy, who came running up to catch them, through the crowd leaving after the written test.

"Hey," the boy called out once he got closer. "Kabuto, I need to be a medic ninja. Do you know how I should get started?"

"You? Be a medic ninja? I'm afraid that's not really possible, Naruto. You'd need perfect chakra control, among other things."

Kabuto laughed, but not with any real malice.

Not about to be deterred, Naruto pressed on. "What about that regeneration technique you do that I heard about? How do you do that?"

Still laughing, the silver haired one shook his head. "You know, if I felt there was any chance of you being able to use it, I'd never tell you. But just to show you how impossible it would be, let me show you how it works. Then you can try it yourself, and see how far away you are from doing this, and maybe pick a more reasonable specialty for your talents."

Naruto grinned.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

No, Naruto is not a super-awesome medic. He really doesn't have the chakra control for it. However, he has the knowledge of how to be one, and knows chakra control can change. He has already improved his, and plans to improve it more.

So, at some future point when he has that control, he plans to be a very good medic, at least as good as Kabuto is supposed to be. Not as good as Kabuto actually is, because the traitor hides much of his ability, and got some of his skill by performing both illegal and inhumane experiments. But Naruto got all of the academic know-how he could obtain toward the end of being a very talented medic as soon as he had the control for it.

Why did he go to all the effort to learn the knowledge before he could perform the skills? Well, because knowledge has a tendency to grow. If he'd learned it all later, then he'd know only what he'd learned. But learning it early he has opportunity to notice things that may expand that knowledge, so that by the time he is able to use it, he just might have more of it. And there is also the chance that something might just come up where the vast book learning and little bit of effectual skill he's got might do some good.

It is always better to have a little talent than to have none.


	9. Chapter 9

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Nine

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto was stymied.

He needed extra chakra control badly in order to gain access to teachers with other abilities, and get some utility out of the medical stuff he'd already studied, and hopefully save Sasuke's worthless life in the Forest of Death so they could all move on.

He didn't know about the love thing, only knowing that his attempts at healing Sasuke had never helped yet, and thought more skill would matter. And for that he needed better chakra control, as always.

The trouble with that was, the only person who'd teach him any control was Ebisu, and he'd already gotten a scroll to study from the special jonin. The genin knew from experience that unless he could toss it right back at the guy, saying he'd already read (and then mastered) it, he wouldn't get any further instruction from the man.

So his study of that scroll had an increased priority.

"Let's see," he pondered as he chewed on fried lizard out in the forest, the same place he'd meet Tenten in the morning. It was a good spot, as he could study until he dropped from fatigue, then wake up to time with a friend.

He also didn't have much of a food budget, so as his cooking skill increased he'd go out into the woods surrounding Konoha and find some herbs and animals to prepare, as that saved money for other things and was less boring than yet another meal of instant ramen.

Yes, he'd loved ramen, but variety was the spice of life and now he wasn't getting it in any of the usual ways, so he'd branched out his diet.

So far he'd eaten rabbit, deer, elk, moose and squirrels, and was starting on some of the less traditional game animals, like bear and, today, lizards. The meals he was able to prepare, as well as the greens he was able to find, were steadily increasing in complexity, quality and flavor.

So far he'd only died a couple of times from eating the wrong mushroom or plant, and was getting better about spotting the dangerous varieties.

That scroll Ebisu had given him was a fairly scholarly treatise that had only five elements described, although he knew there were two more: Earth, Fire, Lightning, Water and Wind, and he'd seen Haku using Ice, while the stories of the First Hokage all had him using Wood. Of them all, only four were usable by everyone. The scroll did say that most people could use lightning, but not all, and he already knew it took a special bloodline to use the other two.

The scroll then pointed out that every village interpreted the basic elements differently as to which was superior. That was natural, he guessed, seeing as how they all came from differing countries with varying specialties, and the secrets they'd unveiled after using them for so long could improve them to the point of even reversing their natural qualities to make one strong even against those it was naturally quite weak against. However, despite all that, there were still certain things that certain elements always did better than others.

Fire and Wind lent themselves more naturally to offense than defense. It was true they could be used defensively, it was just harder. The same was true in reverse with Earth and Water, as each was far more easily used on defensive measures than offensive ones.

Of course, people didn't always do what was easy. Being ninja, they often did the very opposite of what was easy in order to accomplish the unexpected.

Lightning was almost like a cross between Fire and Wind, in that it had both of their strengths and weaknesses added on top of each other. That made it very, Very easily used on offensive purposes, and equally difficult to use on defensive, except for the "kill my enemy before he kills me" sort of defense.

Viewing it as a combined element like that, it was also easy to see why not every one had the ability to use it. Both of the other combined elements he knew of were bloodlines. Maybe Lightning use was too? One that developed so long ago that it had spread to nearly everyone, perhaps before they even realized what it could be used for?

Oh well, not like it mattered anyway.

The scroll also cautioned that an elemental affinity had to be developed. And, well, instead of the meaning the author had possibly intended of "whatever one you've got you'd have to work to increase," to the boy who was reading it, that meant "An elemental affinity was something you created."

And, well, if you were creating one, why not all? It was just a matter of time and motivation to practice, right? And both of those he had plenty of.

Settling down, he began to study the various exercises. To practice Earth, you took a leaf and began infusing it with your chakra, hopefully drying it out to harden to a dirt-like consistency to eventually turn it into powder. For fire you did the same but tried to burn it. For Lightning, the same, but you tried to crinkle it. Water, moisten it, and Wind to cut it.

They all sounded fairly simple.

With a shrug, Naruto decided, "I'm going to learn them all anyway. Might as well go in alphabetical order. Let's start with Earth."

I I I

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!" Naruto cried out through his microphone to a stadium audience consisting of thousands of exact copies of him, some female, all cheering and stomping on the bleachers he'd also created around the glade in the forest where Sasuke and Gaara were about to fight. "And Welcome to tonight's Celebrity Death Match!"

The clones roared their approval, drowning out all other noise.

"In this corner," he waved to the Sand siblings, who were all looking more than slightly alarmed at suddenly being surrounded by approximately four thousand shadow clones on stadium seats that had all appeared mysteriously out of nowhere. "Gaara of the Desert!"

A surge of cheers came from the crowd.

"And in this corner," he waved back to his own team, where Sasuke was looking utterly disgusted with him. "The Amazing! The Stupendous! The Colossal!..." He bent over to speak to another one of his clones, this one is a stage manager's uniform. "Hey, what do you mean Orochimaru's not going to show? Use the substitute? That Uchiha kid? No way! He'd never last ten seconds against that guy from Sand. I mean we're talking Gaara here! The undefeated village champion! Slayer of thousands, winner of over a hundred private assassination matches. The Uchiha hasn't even killed a bug! It'd be a total slaughter to send him in against that trained killer! Do it anyway? Well, okay, but you've gotta switch all my bets around - everything on Gaara to win! Okay!" He turned back to the studio audience, finished with his 'private' conversation that everyone had heard. "Now where were we? Oh, yes! Now, representing Konoha! The one, the only, the Amazing Walking Ego, the Pretty Princess, and darling of Fire country's pedophilic circle, The Dweebmeister!"

Equally loud boos and jeers from the clones met this pronouncement.

"Man, that's harsh," Kiba whispered to the rest of Team 8 where they had hidden out in the forest, drawn by the noise.

"Gaara! Gaara! He's our man! He can't do it, no one can!" Shouted an entire line of buxom cheerleader Naruto-chans, bouncing around shaking pompoms.

Sasuke was grinding the knuckles of his fingers together. He was going to kill him. The dope was going to die! How DARE he mock him like this before an important fight?

"The winner of tonight's fight," Naruto announced. "Goes on to the finals for a chance to gain the coveted chunin grade!"

A roar of approval from the audience Narutos.

"And to the loser," he continued, once the volume had died down to a more bearable level, "a consolation prize. The fact that they will no longer have to put up with Sakura's whining, seeing as how they will be mercifully dead."

"He didn't just say that, did he?" Ino muttered in shocked awe, where her own team were hiding out in the woods overlooking this.

"Peanuts, popcorn, crackerjacks," Naruto clones dressed up as snack vendors were going up and down the aisles - and visiting all of the dozens of concealed teams hidden in the surrounding woods.

Choji bought a raft of snacks while he had the chance, causing Ino to drop her face into her hands in disgust.

"I'm sorry, miss," one of the vendor clones informed Anko, where she was also overlooking this, having heard the noise. "But I'm going to have to see some ID. You don't look over 18 to me."

Seeing it was nothing serious, she'd stopped a vendor to ask about some sake. Pulling a wallet out of who-knows-where, she flashed him her nin-ID card, and collected her bottle.

"And they're off!" The announcer Naruto shouted out suddenly. "The Uchiha leads with a glare to the left! A sneer to the right! Oh! It's brutal! But Gaara is staying calm in the face of this fierce disapproval!"

That was it. Sasuke decided. The dope was going to die! There was nothing that was going to save him from his wrath after he got through with this!

He'd live long enough to get the team to the tower, so that he wouldn't be disqualified and lose his own chances, but after that!

"And it's that patented Sasuke Scowl! You're seeing it yourself folks! A move that he's been practicing for the last half dozen years is now seeing its first appearance in a real death match! But Gaara seems unfazed by the blow!"

Slow and painful. Sasuke decided. It was going to be slow and painful.

"He feints with a pout! What will it be next, folks? Oh! I can't believe it! It's the dreaded eye twitch! Can it be that Gaara has gotten through to his ego already? Impossible! There's no creature on Earth more arrogant than an Uchiha! He can't be giving up yet, folks!"

"I can't believe that Sasuke hasn't already killed Naruto for this!" Ino said between mouthfuls of popcorn with extra butter.

"He would have if he could tell which was the real one." Nara sighed, reclining beside her with a bag full of peanuts. "So troublesome."

"And it's back to the scowl, folks! I haven't seen action this intense since Sasuke nearly killed himself out of sheer terror and hopelessness at his own weak and useless condition on facing his first real opponent on a C-rank mission!" Announcer Naruto shouted enthusiastically into his microphone.

"Did that really happen?" Kiba turned to Hinata who nodded, having heard the story through the kunoichi grapevine. Although the version the fangirls told was more sympathetic than that one.

The dog user enjoyed a laugh at that information.

"Oh! We've got a lip curl! The Uchiha is really pulling out the stops here, ladies and gentlemen! I wonder how Gaara of the Sands can stand it!"

Gaara of the Sands was actually enjoying himself immensely. He couldn't quite remember what approval felt like, but now he had a whole stadium audience pouring it off onto him.

And he liked it, even if they were all thousands of the same boy giving it.

"And the Uchiha takes it up to the next level by slipping into his 'I'm an angry pretty boy' stance that makes him so popular with disgusting old men and brainless fangirls!"

"Hey!" Ino cried out, still safely back in the woodlands. She'd always thought Sasuke looked cute like that!

Nara stifled a snort before he could break out laughing and offend Ino, who'd clobber him for it.

Off in his part of the woods, Kiba felt no need for any such restraint and howled openly, clutching his gut as it hurt from so much laughter.

Hinata was busy eating her footlong sausage on a bun, covered in mustard and relish, that a vendor Naruto had given her "Compliments of the house." With a silent glance to ask approval, Shino helped himself to one of the sodas out of the six pack by her side.

The energy of the sugar in the soda water would help aid his bugs if it came to a conflict.

Anko had spilled her sake, roaring with unexpected laughter as the arrogant little prick got taken down a peg, by his own teammate no less! Wiping her mouth off on her sleeve, she signaled a vendor for another round.

"Yes!" the announcer went on. "The Uchiha has slipped into his 'Feeling sorry for myself!' defense! There's nothing that Gaara can do to hurt his feelings now, folks! The Uchiha has preempted all attempts to make him feel bad by already inflicting misery on himself! This never fails to get the fangirls falling all over him! It's going to be over soon, now, ladies and gentlemen! And... YES! Gaara makes a move, instantly crushing Sasuke to death using the sand The Uchiha had been ignoring pooling up at his feet all along! It just goes to show, folks, that you should never play 'hurt feelings' in a real fight! He will have to be satisfied with our consolation prize. And our winner is GAARA!"

The clones went nuts in their cheering and applause. Several teams of female Naruto cheerleaders bounced around excitedly spelling out Gaara's name letter by letter while leaping and cavorting about waving pompoms.

The after game wrap up show was almost as much of a spectacle as the actual match, with thousands of Narutos marching around on parade. They even had a brass band!

Kakashi, when he found out, went so far beyond upset that angry didn't even begin to cover it. It was as though they'd done it to him instead of Sasuke.

The amazing copycat ninja got so intensely mad he actually pulled out his Thousand Birds assassination technique in front of the Hokage, and Naruto almost got it between the eyes.

No, he got it to the chest instead, and Naruto got the unpleasant knowledge that he could actually live through having his chest blown open by Kakashi's 'one hit kill' technique.

Still, the reset put everything back to normal, as usual.

I I I

On reflection, Naruto considered his chakra control dilemma to be becoming desperate. He was running out of things that he could learn and still claim were at all useful to becoming a better ninja.

Ok, it was nice to learn flower arranging and all, but unless he was going to go undercover as a girl somewhere, it was hardly critical knowledge, and after his recent surge of abilities, slowing down like this was very distasteful.

He loved learning under Tenten's tutelage, but she was an excellent teacher and only knew so much herself. So it was not long before she'd passed that on to him. The time spent bugging Kabuto had been plenty to learn all she could teach and then some.

Oh, he was only hitting forty times out of a hundred, half that with exotic stuff that wasn't meant to be thrown, but without muscle memory and still having to think through every action, that was as good as he was probably going to get.

She was skilled enough that many of the tricks she knew for rapid throwing rates and pinpoint accuracy she couldn't pass on to him until he'd crested that limit. So, sadly, now he was hanging around her for fun instead of a vast increase in ninja skills, like he'd earlier enjoyed with her.

Still, he was plenty willing to have fun and hang out with her just for the sake of it. People were probably the most interesting things about this whole reset scenario. You read a book and you've read it, there wasn't anything else there. But people had so many depths and hidden triggers, even when you think you know them well there was always more to discover.

Hm! On that thought!

I I I

"Hey, Ebisu! What do you do for fun? You know, when you aren't training young ninja or out on missions?"

Seeing as how the blond genin asking this of him was doing as he'd been told, turning this way and that, lifting one leg, and so on, the special jonin decided he'd be agreeable in return and answer, lest Naruto start being difficult. So he adjusted his glasses and thought a moment.

"Frankly? I like to draw."

Naruto nearly fell down from where he'd been balancing. Wow. THAT he hadn't expected! "Really?"

"Yes." The special jonin gazed off into the woodlands. "You don't truly see beauty until you learn to recognize it. The world is an amazingly lovely place, but how often do you pause and appreciate it? No, I draw because it gives me a sense of connection to the beauty all around us when I pause and study it."

"Wow. Who would have thought?" Naruto blinked twice in shock, before using his head to turn around and really look at stuff, having before just seen a sort of mental summary of things he could use and things he couldn't.

Then he really saw what the special jonin had been talking about: The way the wind blew, rustling leaves, glints of sunlight through the trees.

It was gorgeous. How had he missed this? He'd been standing right in the middle of it this whole time, how could he not have seen how lovely it all was?

Ebisu, as a teaching specialist, decided to turn this into a teaching moment before the young one could forget this instant of realization and dismiss his words. "As ninja we have a very dangerous profession. All of us are subject to great stress performing our duties. It is vitally important, young Naruto, to understand that you cannot accumulate stress forever or it will destroy you. You must have some way of reducing or escaping it. For some this thing is alcohol, for others..." he snorted disdainfully, "pornography, or obsessions with power or control. But all of those are self destructive habits, not nearly so bad as going rogue and killing your clan, but ultimately destructive to you and your abilities. No, I do not recommend them. They are the choices of those who have made no choice before their stress grew so great it demanded that they do something to relieve their suffering."

The special jonin reoriented on him, the light glinting across his glasses as he turned to look at him. "No, everyone needs peace, a way to find their solace and unwind from the stress of our profession. You can choose a destructive habit, or a constructive one. I choose to draw, and the feeling of connection with the beauty of nature this gives me has so far suited all my needs."

Naruto was nodding, still caught up in wonder. Wow! Who would have thought?

It was several moments before he regained his wits after his surprise at the beauty all around them. By then Ebisu was gazing at him smugly, smiling over his folded arms. "You see?"

Taking a deep breath, the boy nodded again. "So what now Ebisu?"

He still needed to progress, and for that he needed to master that scroll, so he could eventually learn something else.

After all, the public library didn't have scrolls of ninja techniques. Even well-known ones like Body Flicker were still held as semi-secret, and were passed down in families for the most part. All of the scrolls detailing them were in private libraries, usually owned by clans.

Ebisu paused in his instruction as his student got a wicked gleam to his eyes.

I I I

"I can't believe I hadn't thought of this before," Naruto mused to himself under his breath. "I mean, I know where the bastard hangs out, and he's not going to come anywhere near this place all day - maybe never. I can't recall ever seeing him come here, even before we started to repeat. But, if you are going to steal techniques..."

He looked up at the gates to the Uchiha district, standing before them debating whether or not to disguise himself as his broody teammate.

"Why not steal from the best? These guys have been copying the techniques of others since before this village was founded. They've got to have some useful stuff hidden in there somewhere. The sort of stuff they were famous for copying is exactly the kind of thing no one else will teach me!"

In the end he decided not to use a disguise this time. Plenty of opportunity for that later, if he had to. And he did not want to wear the broody bastard's face any more than needed. So he pushed open a small, door sized, side gate beside the grand main ones big enough for parade floats to pass through and slipped right in.

"Dang! This place is extensive!" Naruto muttered to himself as he beheld the interior of the walled compound. The only thing he could think of to compare it to was the Forest of Death, only it was on a different side of the village from that perilous place, and slightly smaller.

But for a clan compound that was unbelievably huge, especially when you accounted for all of the buildings covering the place, in between the parks and private training grounds. There were even untended farms lying fallow, that had once been worked by hired laborers.

It wasn't that big because the population had demanded it. No, there'd never been all that many Uchihas, a hundred at most. But, judging by what Naruto saw, they had lived like kings.

Apparently being copycats paid well.

Still somewhat awed by the size of the place, Naruto started exploring. Of course it couldn't be that easy. Yes, the place was full of traps, it was part of a ninja village, after all, but what of it? Traps were no barrier to a ninja who could create thousands of solid clones and tell them to go first.

No, what really tripped him up were the tiny seals inscribed on each window and door of the place. Small, unobtrusive, and the very first time he broke one a full ANBU team appeared, summoned to that location by the disturbed seal, whereupon they immediately took him into custody and dragged him before the Hokage, who blinked when he saw him.

"Oh? Naruto? What were you doing in the Uchiha district?"

"I was looking for Sasuke-teme," the blond lied easily, with the practice of long experience behind him to make it convincing. "He'd promised to teach me the Grand Fireball technique, but I couldn't find him anywhere. So I went to look for him at his house."

Relieved, the old man tapped the ashes out of his pipe, motioning for the ANBU team to stand down. "Oh. You wouldn't find him there, Naruto. Sasuke lives in an apartment in town. Here, let me give you the address."

As the old man started to write, the demon container shook off the arms of the ANBU still holding him. "Hey, old man! Why is that place so big, anyway? Did we have millions of Uchihas, or something?"

Sarutobi chuckled at the question, presented Naruto the paper with Sasuke's address, and sat back, lighting his pipe. "Actually, the size of the Uchiha district had nothing to do with their numbers. The grant of a large compound was a tool used by the first Hokage to draw the status conscience clan to join his new village. At the time before there was a village here, the land was practically worthless, so it cost the First Hokage virtually nothing to make even so grand an offer. So a huge plot of land was used as bait to stroke the egos of a very proud clan, and it worked out marvelously."

"So why doesn't Sasuke-teme live there?" the blond looked at the address on the paper before crumpling it in his fist, as Sarutobi expected him to do. He'd had a great deal of experience in acting and how to throw off suspicion.

The Hokage's face darkened. "Naruto, I don't expect you to remember, but when you were about six years old one of the most promising prodigies the Uchiha clan have ever produced turned rogue and slaughtered his family in what is now known as the Uchiha Massacre."

"So what's that got to do with anything?" the genin blurted, interrupting as he knew the old man expected him to.

"I was just coming to that." Sarutobi set down his pipe in a tray and folded his gnarled old hands. "I suppose I should not be surprised your teammate never mentioned it to you. It has always been a sore subject for him, but it was his older brother Itachi who murdered his clan. A person Sasuke had always before looked up to and been told to emulate by his father, killed his father and mother in front of him, then subjected him to several days of torture using a special illusion."

"Heck, the only thing Sasuke's ever told me is that I'm an idiot, and that he's better than everyone else 'cause he's an Uchiha." The orange clad boy folded his arms behind his head and casually examined the walls, trying to hide how much that still hurt, especially since Sasuke's mood wasn't great during the test and he was having trouble remembering better times, if there were any.

Come to think of it, Sasuke'd always been something of a stuck up bastard. Why did he hang around him again? Oh, that's right. He'd had no family and zero real friends, so he'd substituted by annoying acquaintances in order to get people to recognize him. Sasuke and Sakura had been his prime targets.

The Hokage sighed, reading that interplay as though he could see inside the boy's mind. "Yes. I've heard that boy tends to keep people at a distance. It is not healthy for him. I was hoping, when I formed Team 7, that your friendly and outgoing nature would be good for him, and that if you became friends his popularity would benefit you in turn."

Naruto glanced at the guy out of the corner of his eye. "News flash, gramps. It didn't happen that way. He and his fangirl take turns abusing me, and when it really matters they gang up on me."

Sarutobi shrank in on himself a touch. "Yes, I'd heard that, too."

Naruto turned back to examine the walls. "So what part about being a stuck up, selfish bastard makes him not want to live at home? I'd thought having such a huge place would only help prove he was better than anyone else. He's always looking for stuff to prove his arrogance is justified."

The old man blinked at hearing the word 'justified' come out of Naruto's mouth, and, without reacting to it, the blond genin made a note not to use it the next time they had this conversation, should they ever do so. Still, the moment of surprise was not great enough to stop him from answering the question. "After the catastrophe, Sasuke didn't want to live where he was constantly surrounded by reminders of what he had lost. So I made a deal with him. The Uchiha district is, as you pointed out, surprisingly large, and no sooner had that clan accepted the First Hokage's offer than other member clans were grumbling about it. So I felt I could satisfy everyone in one great move. I could help a child with too much on his shoulders while resolving the animosity among our other clans at the same time."

Sarutobi gave a very sad smile. "I truly thought I was being quite clever, and felt I would resolve a longstanding bitterness if I offered for Konoha to buy the Uchiha properties from Sasuke at a fair price for all involved, then turn around and sell them again to whoever wanted them. Thus, none of our clans could complain again about the large land grant, because everyone would have had their own chance to bid on them, along with everyone else. While Sasuke would be well provided for and away from painful, traumatic memories."

Naruto glanced at the Hokage, then slagged down into a chair, mannerisms just screaming 'get on with this!', even though he was secretly quite interested.

Sarutobi leaned back and drew several long drafts on his pipe, thinking he was torturing the young genin by the delay, but he did eventually continue. "Sasuke agreed, and packed everything he wanted from the estate. He did not take much, as I recall. I offered to pay for several genin teams to help him move at Konoha's expense, but he turned down my offer and left with only what he could carry."

The old man started to look very tired as he continued, "As for why Sasuke didn't take more, I believe that is in three parts. First, he was traumatized and wanted to get in and out quickly. He likely wasn't thinking clearly or as the last Uchiha. Second, the use of the library had been pounded into his head from an early age. His family was so firm about treatment of their collection that even I know the rules: don't lose or damage any scrolls or books you take, return them when you're done, and if there is only one copy left then either make another copy or don't remove it from the library. Third, he was aiming at getting memories and what he and Itachi had been learning at that time from their father... everything else was secondary to that goal."

Naruto gave the Hokage a bored look that was completely at odds with his feelings inside, which thought this was fascinating.

"Ah yes, Naruto, the punchline. I am coming to that. The joke was on me, after all, because no one in Konoha wanted to buy the Uchiha lands. After the massacre happened some felt it was cursed, some felt it was haunted, some just couldn't fathom the idea of wanting to even be near the place after what occurred, some felt it was dishonorable to use the lands after what had happened there, and so on. In the end, no one wanted the Uchiha lands. I was, obviously, fairly annoyed, especially with those who had previously been very vocal about the subject." Sarutobi gave a sad sort of smile.

"There was nothing I could do, though. Konoha owned the land, no one wanted to change it (everyone for differing reasons) or even go near it. We covered the buildings with seals to keep out squatters or infiltrators, and patrol it every so often to keep it clear, but ever since that day it has just sat there, a permanent reminder of what Itachi did to his family. Sasuke, I understand, has never once gone near the place since he left it."

"Yah. But at least that bastard gets to know who his parents were," Naruto bit off that statement bitterly, folding his arms behind his head to look away from the Hokage sullenly, mumbling, "And he gets love and respect of the villagers. Kakashi teaches him techniques, and..." the voice grew too soft for even the Hokage's sharp ears to follow.

Sarutobi winced badly, then broke out in a wan smile as he reached for a price of paper. "Naruto, how would you like your own district?"

The boy's shocked and grateful eyes grew round, then he consumed the old man in a hug. "YES!"

Too bad the library of the place was impossible to find.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

The reviews are, as always, less than I want and more than I deserve. I read and enjoy each and every one of them.

Well, except yours (author points out the screen at you). Your reviews suck (and I am, of course, kidding).

Thank you for them.

Credit where credit is due, most of the Hokage's last page of dialogue concerning the Uchiha properties was written by Mr. Mysterious as a suggestion concerning an open idea on TFF, and adapted for use here by me.

Permission was asked, but no response gotten. At least not yet, and for me to keep up my update schedule I could hardly afford to wait a week or two for permission to use what WAS an open suggestion.

After all, these aren't stored in advance on my hard drive. I am writing them one a day, and he had just as much warning as I did this was going out. The only time I missed a day was when the site wasn't accepting submissions due to their own error, so I took a day of vacation from it.


	10. Chapter 10

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Ten

by Lionheart

I I I

Every morning, or every other morning when he'd choose to pass the test to go on die fighting Orochimaru, or laugh himself sick as Gaara gelded Sasuke, Naruto woke up to the same old broken down dive he'd always lived in.

Although, ever since he'd begun his home improvement kick, he'd wake up to create a steadily increasing number of clones to work on the place while he was away.

Lately he'd been creating close to six hundred clones every morning just to fix up his house. They'd strip out everything except the support beams for the upper stories then go to work. By the time he came back for lunch (if he came back for lunch, variety was the spice of life, after all), his apartment would cover two entire floors of that building that were formerly empty (no one wanted to live too close to the demon brat), with open internal balconies, galleries, brand new custom furniture and floorings, everything clean and bright, newly painted and with glittering fixtures.

The entire place was a palace.

Of course, the Uchiha district was simply enormous, large enough to practically count as a village unto itself, with its own shops and everything.

But now it all sat empty.

It would be a mistake to say that Naruto bought it. Actually the Hokage gave it to him for free, reasoning to the boy in private that he could not make up for his harsh life in other ways, but perhaps this could go a long way toward giving him a brighter future. In public he had no need to say anything but that those lands were his to distribute as he chose, and no one else had wanted them in all the years they'd been available.

So, like the First Hokage had done, the Third made them a grant, as he had the authority to do. And, since he'd learned how to get the Hokage to do that for him, Naruto did it often, because after every reset it was back to that same old dingy dive he'd always called home.

Interestingly enough, having done a little research, he knew what was now the Forest of Death had once been offered as the same deal to another clan, one that had not, in the end, elected to join the newly emerging village of Konoha, but had stayed in the land of Mist where their valuable abilities had since been destroyed when that country turned against and murdered their bloodline carrying clans.

The land, initially kept reserved in case they'd changed their minds, had since come to other uses as a survival training ground and testing area.

But all of that came about later as he was doing research into the district and discussing the history of the place with Sarutobi. Ever since he'd started getting it he would spend some time there searching as he poked further and further into the former Uchiha lands. For the moment, he was busy looking for their library of stolen ninja techniques.

It was not easy to find.

Hardly surprising, really. The Hokage had doubtless been searching himself, and sent teams to do likewise before they'd closed it all down. The collection of scrolls on stolen techniques must represent an incredible resource, if only no one could find it, and Sasuke wasn't talking.

Perhaps the bastard realized what he'd given up, and had been trying to figure out a way to get it back, after having spent part of the money.

Nah!

That was really unlikely. Anything Sasuke wanted, he got, as someone was willing to give it to him. No, more than likely he was just being a bastard about it, denying the village help because he could.

It was also possible the bastard had forgotten where it was. After all, he'd been quite young when he'd left the place, and that might have gotten caught up in all of the general repressing he did over the rest of that trauma.

Sasuke was not a well-adjusted, happy boy.

It was also possible the broody boy had never known about it. Children blab things without meaning to. So, if it was all so desperately secret, they just might not have told the kid where it was before they all died, just handing him scrolls as needed.

And if that were the case, the Uchiha was too proud to ever admit it.

Anyway, no longer dipping into the Uchiha's mind (it was an icky place), the Uzumaki boy had spent several entire resets after finding out how to get the Hokage to grant him those properties going over them and looking for those scrolls, only to be disappointed.

They were really marvelously well hidden. But then he had an idea.

I I I

It struck him, as he'd been thinking, that somewhere on the Uchiha property was the Uchiha library, containing whatever records they'd made of special moves and ninja powers stolen over entire generations of using Sharingan, that, it was presently hidden in such a way that unless he could somehow get his own Sharingan (the most likely key), he was unlikely to find it. Ever, considering how hard he'd looked already.

His clones were in the process of dismantling buildings, and if they hadn't found it by doing that, they were not likely to find it at all. Although there were plenty of ordinary secrets around the place. Who knew that the Uchiha were such perverts? There was porn stuck in practically every wall of every home, concealed by who knows who for what reasons.

Although, he was learning a great deal about traps as he dismantled the places, and the Uchiha had some fiendish ones. Too bad most couldn't be used out in field conditions.

Still, that wasn't a total loss, as it had reminded him of something. Namely Sasuke's techniques hadn't come out of nowhere. He'd known some C-rank special powers even before he'd graduated the ninja academy, which was also long before he'd gotten his Sharingan activated.

So, no Sharingan meant he couldn't have just copied them, which meant that he'd learned them from somewhere. Since it was unlikely his family taught him, seeing as how they were all dead, and had been long before the Uchiha had started to use those techniques, the most likely answer was he'd learned them off scrolls, perhaps taken from that exact same Uchiha library.

So, what would an arrogant bastard do with a scroll detailing a secret ninja power after he'd learned what it could show him? Why, nothing! He'd leave it wherever it happened to be when he got finished with it!

Because, you see, arrogance makes people do things like that. And especially in the Uchiha's case, where people were falling over themselves in eagerness to do things for him or give things to him, he didn't have to be careful with anything that he had.

There is a word for that, and it is called: Spoiled - a word that suited Sasuke perfectly. He was a perfect little spoiled princess. Everyone in Konoha loved him and gave him whatever he wanted, while he pouted about it not being enough or good enough for him.

So, figuring that unless Sasuke gave it away once he no longer had need of it (and not finding that likely, as the Uchiha was far from generous) Naruto felt that the most probable place for those scrolls to be abandoned was in the bastard's apartment.

So he broke in to go looking for it, one day while a clone was off taking the written test to cover for him, so he could be certain Sasuke wasn't home, or going to be returning there for an hour or more.

That was all the time the blond burglar would need to ransack the residence of his rival, especially with a dozen clones to help. He could go over every inch of it to be sure not to miss anything.

They struck paydirt almost at once. It wasn't even hard.

On a shelf next to the dining room table was one of those little honeycomb-holed organizers meant for holding scrolls. Most of them were slightly dusty, and seeing as how Naruto knew his teammate had a cleaning lady that was sad, as it said he almost never read them.

Which suited what he'd expected, actually.

A couple of those scrolls were worn, like they had been well-read. Taking one down to look at it, the blond burglar found on it the basics of how to use the Sharingan, for those that had the bloodline; what to expect from activation and so on, including cautions on its use, mostly a warning to beware of the level of chakra drain. Nothing terribly hard to understand, although it did contain some specifics that outsiders to the clan would probably find useful, such as limited range, included as part of a caution that anything not clearly seen could not be adequately predicted or copied.

So it wasn't telescopic vision. That was good to know. If a normal person could not see it in sufficient detail to read, the Sharingan couldn't copy it. If that sort of information was widespread then everyone facing one of this clan would do Zabuza's thing of hiding out in mist or fog to hunt these guys.

Oh well, nothing there he didn't already know. But it was nice to see it spelled out in detail.

Two more of those scrolls showed the basics of a fighting style, developed by the Uchiha after a generation of stealing the best they could see. On the few scrolls he had available, it wasn't much, not too different from the style taught at the academy, but it did show a few moves Sasuke had used that were not taught to ordinary ninja.

It probably got into greater detail on more advanced scrolls, but those were not present, only the basics, probably what Sasuke had been working on at the time the clan died.

The last of the frequently read scrolls was solid gold, as far as Naruto was concerned. It contained several fire techniques, the two that he'd seen his rival use, plus four others. The later ones on the scroll hadn't been read as much as the first two, while the last had hardly been read at all.

Naruto palmed his face and sighed. Somehow he'd always figured as much. Deep down, the bastard was just as lazy as Kakashi. Once something got hard he'd stop even trying.

Maybe having the Sharingan made you stupid? Unable to read? But no, that couldn't be right. To get the early parts of this scroll so worn his rival would have had to have been studying this for years.

Yet... he hadn't mastered the whole thing?

Naruto didn't know about anyone else, but he would've been using all six of those special moves in a month, tops. And that was even before he really knew how to read. Most likely he would've blitzed through them in less than a week, frying himself several times in the process of learning them, but still!

To have had such wealth and not devoured it was inconceivable to the orange clad boy, whose appetite for ninja skills was insatiable. And that fire scroll was just one of many!

The next scroll Naruto pulled down from that shelf was a new addition by the look of it, yet still several months old. But when he opened it up it explained itself, because at the top was a note from Kakashi, saying that these might help the Uchiha to become a better ninja.

On it were three Earth techniques: One for making a wall of earth spring up out of the ground to protect you from opponents, and the two Kakashi had used to defeat Sasuke during the genin test: One that allowed a user to hide underground, even moving a short distance through dirt, and the other where you dragged your victim down into the earth until only their head stuck out.

By the looks of it, their teacher had to have given this to Sasuke right after the test, or at least in that timeframe, yet it was brand new - it had never been opened, much less read.

Naruto stood there, fists clenched and steamed. How could he? How COULD Sasuke be so wasteful? And Kakashi? He'd NEVER ONCE offered to train his most desperate student in anything useful! The blond had begged and pleaded for scraps of attention, for any hint of training, and yet here he'd showered it on the pretty head of the Uchiha! Even when he didn't want...

In the midst of this upset a lightbulb went off over Naruto's head. This had been the way it had always been between them. Kakashi would ignore him to favor Sasuke, while Sasuke didn't work hard or appreciate...

That was it.

The ONE time Kakashi had done anything close to training anyone other than Sasuke was that tree climbing exercise. Sakura had gotten it right away, while Naruto had pressed hard... and the Uchiha only worked at it because he didn't want Naruto to get the move down first.

Kakashi was using him as a tool to motivate the Uchiha who, by the looks of the things found here in his room, didn't work hard for anything if he could avoid it.

So why hadn't he done those contests more times?

Feh. Probably because Sasuke'd asked him not to. Kakashi would never do anything Sasuke didn't want. He loved him like a son and wouldn't deny him anything - including having his 'rival' held back, and Sasuke... sigh... Sasuke practically defined his existence by being better than Naruto.

No, not just better, by utterly leaving him in the dust. The greater the gap between their abilities, the more the Uchiha would gloat and boast over it.

So that's why Kakashi hadn't done any more of those 'race you to learn this' contests between him and the Uchiha, even though it did serve to motivate the broody bastard. After all, whenever Kakashi made the two race to get a technique down, they'd both still learn it eventually.

And Sasuke felt better about himself when Naruto knew nothing. It gave him a better opportunity to shine, after all.

The BASTARDS!

Grabbing all of those scrolls so he could memorize them over the rest of the day (and who cared if the Uchiha found them missing. They'd all be back in place after the reset anyway, and the Uchiha would recall nothing of it), Naruto almost missed one that had been tossed into the back like garbage.

Peeking at it, Naruto found it to be a scroll of very minor ninja techniques useful in camping. But scribbled across the top, in Sasuke's handwriting back from third grade or so, was "Not going to help me beat Itachi."

So, that made it garbage, did it?

Naruto didn't think so, and he grabbed that scroll along with the others to go and study their contents. Unlike certain Uchihas, he wasn't going to turn up his nose at any chance to increase his skills or knowledge!

It disgusted him that anyone could call that sort of pathetic person a genius.

On his way out, his clones stopped him to see a discovery they'd made while prying up floorboards (hey! It didn't matter if they got caught ransacking the place, as it would all be back to normal either tomorrow or the next day).

Down in a dusty corner, hidden under the floor, was a box of what had to be Sasuke's treasures. It held an ornate katana, a lady's jeweled pin, and a small box of family photos. Since some of those photos showed his dad with the sword, and his mom wearing the pin (the photos had names on the backs), it was easy to figure out these were all relics of his parents.

Holes had been cut out of some of those photos, where, at a guess, Itachi had once been pictured. A name scribbled out here or there confirmed it.

These treasures weren't exactly hidden in a convenient place, but neither were they left entirely alone. The nails and holes over the opening in the floor to reach them showed signs of having been pried open several times before.

So, at a guess, the Last Uchiha pried them up to look at his family mementos once or twice a year, or whenever his brooding began to falter.

Acting on a bit of petty revenge, Naruto took the items to see how much a pawn shop would offer for them. Of course, armed with the Uchiha's bank account information, found hidden behind a painting in the suite's kitchen, he had no need of extra money - one quick Shapeshift and cash withdrawal would provide all he could want within his modest needs, he felt sure.

But it was the spirit of the thing that counted. Sasuke treated what Naruto treasured as garbage, Naruto could do the same in return.

I I I

Those purloined scrolls were a treasure trove of the highest order to Naruto, who'd been desperately seeking after such knowledge for years - even if you didn't count all of the time pre-loop he'd spend long enough during endless repeating days he felt that probably qualified alone.

Even just the scrolls he had already opened amazed him with their utility.

Opening them all revealed nearly thirty techniques, only counting those that Naruto DIDN'T already know, averaging about six techniques per each of the five common elements - and most of those scrolls had never been opened.

Not once, until Naruto had done so just now.

In fact, floating down out of one was a note, almost five years old, inviting the Uchiha to special training, written by one of their academy teachers. Naruto didn't know if the man had gotten to teach Sasuke private lessons or not, and that was far from the only scroll about techniques given to Sasuke during his academy days.

There were scrolls on the basic three with notes and details written in the margins that the Uzumaki lad had had to pull out of Ebisu a scrap at a time. Actually... Naruto scowled, reading on.

Yup. Ebisu STILL hadn't taught him all of this stuff! There were a few ways to tweak those techniques that the special jonin had never mentioned, like that basic Clones did not have to be formed of the user himself, nor did they have to be of human or even animate creatures. The note told a story of a special case when an illusion of a deer, frightened away by an enemy's approach, had convinced a squad of ninja during one war that the victim they were seeking was not present, else he would have spooked the deer himself, when he was the one laying wounded under a bush who'd created the deer clone!

And there were multiple anecdotes of enemy ninja scrambling for dropped weapons only to find, as their hands closed upon hilts, that the obvious ones they'd been seeking were simple illusions, and useless to them.

Transformation and Body Switch had been put to similarly imaginative uses, all listed out here as suggestions for the Uchiha by generous professors. And for the most part, he'd never once even looked at the scrolls.

Actually, looking at the dates, Naruto had to suppress another grimace of disgust, as these teachers had been trying to get Sasuke to learn the jutsus at least a year in advance of the other students being introduced to them!

A genius? Oh! You bet! I mean, look at how fast he'd learned the... whatever.

Well, yeah, that was easy to do when you had a year lead in on everyone else learning them. Sasuke would've had to have a head like a block of wood NOT to have gotten them quickly or early! And somehow Naruto did not suspect those teachers had given up when he hadn't read their scrolls!

All of the extra credit stuff was included that Naruto had never gotten invited to learn, too. There were techniques taught as rewards to talented students to help motive them in classes, things like how to detonate exploding tags from a short distance, basic stealth and wire work, how to form tags into defensive traps automatically triggered by an enemy crossing the circle, and more.

Body Flicker... yep, everything he knew except the Shadow Clone and his own creations had been given to the Uchiha long ago, most of them with master's suggestions on how to really use the techniques to their full potentials.

And, yes, the three basic chakra control exercises were all here, spelled out in detail. One of them was even a gift from Kakashi.

Naruto... the boy had to stifle a sigh and wipe away a tear. He would've done anything for that level of support, for even HALF the assistance the Uchiha had received. But then he had to stifle a miserable laugh, too, as all of that put together, and what did Sasuke use?

Sasuke'd known roughly two techniques, outside of the basic Academy ones. TWO! Here on these scrolls before him were listed nearly THIRTY! A CHUNIN would've been happy to have that kind of technique arsenal! And here Sasuke could've had that as a FREAKING ACADEMY STUDENT! If only he'd listened to those who would've gladly taught him!

It made him want to cry.

All that support, and the Uchiha hadn't even WANTED it! He'd certainly never come close to making the best use of it!

Impotent jealousy gave Naruto actual, physical pain before he reigned it in and mastered himself. Whining about the past couldn't solve his current problems. That was what the broody bastard did, and look at where it got him. He could've been a jonin by now, easily, if he hadn't been feeling sorry for himself and had actually been willing to work hard for what he wanted.

Naruto did not know what Sasuke's problem was, but he sure as anything wasn't going to share it! These techniques were before him, and he was going to learn them. No! He was going to MASTER THEM ALL!

Then he'd see what else he could do with those.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Sorry everyone, this one nearly didn't make it out tonight. One of my brothers made the mistake of mentioning that I could feed my Warcraft addiction for free on a private server, and well, you get the idea.

(hands shaking) I'm not a junkie! I just need a small bag! I'm weak, that's all!


	11. Chapter 11

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Eleven

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto laughed as the ANBU chasing him ran smack dab, face-first into a solid mud wall that had been disguised by a Veil to look like a continuation of the normal street.

Yes, it was to laugh for.

Submerging himself into a puddle (one of several made by smashing a water barrel - he'd learned from the mistake of the Demon Brothers) he let his pursuers pass by, then doubled back the way he'd come.

Suddenly having techniques, Naruto had felt the urge to use them, and you did not get better battle-like conditions without the threat of actual death than you did by having the ANBU chase you around the village for having used a creatively shaped Earth Style Wall technique to fashion an arm on the Hokage monument to have the beloved First Hokage picking his nose.

An Earth Flow River to reshape the Second's face so he was staring at his own golden prize in gleeful fascination, and the Third Hokage eating his own booger with a look of joy over the taste of it.

He'd even used those above techniques to give the Fourth Hokage two hands and sink his face palm-down into them over the other Hokages' antics.

No, life did not get much better than this.

Water surged up out of toilets to drench kunoichi and add them to the chase when the ANBU were not a sufficient challenge by themselves.

Laughing, Naruto took off running pell mell, chased by most of the kunoichi from the restroom, who in turn drew the ANBU back to following after him. Soon the group had him cornered, or at least so they'd thought, until the boy disappeared with a soft 'pop' and a puff of smoke.

Veins bulging they took off searching for the real one amid angry mutters about a Shadow Clone, and Naruto, who'd used a simple Body Switch to change places with one, joined the chase as just one more angry kunoichi while they all began running after a second Naruto clone.

A second later he was switching back with a copy to leave two of the ladies who'd once been teachers at the Academy submerged up to their necks in the dirt of the road, while he left other clones to doodle on their faces and play with their hairstyles.

By the time the massive chase group returned from their false hunt, those women had freakish hairstyles and were covered in scribbles down to their exposed necks - And this time Naruto was back among them, this time in disguise as Kakashi, and suggesting they all go and search the training grounds... where Naruto had previously set up multiple pie traps.

Yes, life really didn't get any better than this.

I I I

After outsmarting most of the village on a chase and pursuit game, Naruto was ready to try his techniques under more serious conditions. Namely, that of an actual test experience.

Yes, it was time to die facing Orochimaru again.

Among the many scrolls given as gifts to Sasuke that the Uchiha had never used was a treatise on the sealing arts, specifically, on how to create your own explosive tags.

And, well, that was just begging to be used!

Now Naruto didn't kid himself. He was nowhere near expert on any of his new skills. He hadn't even gotten all thirty of them to work yet, but it was past time for him to break loose and have a little fun.

Even, yes, by drawing the Snake Sannin into the Amazing Exploding Forest of DOOM! BWAHAHAHAHA!

It all failed miserably, of course, but that was the closest he'd ever gotten to actually giving the sannin anything close to a real workout. Besides, the army of Shadow Clones forming Earth Style Walls to block his attacks (until he'd started to use higher ranking techniques able to break through them) and others using Fireballs and Grand Fireballs to roast him, or attempt to do so, actually, had been really fun to orchestrate!

Orochimaru had cut lose with some real winners of his own there, too! That wind thing he'd done that practically leveled all before it was nice, although even so a substantial portion of his clones had survived by simply resorting to the Underground Move jutsu Kakashi had used on them in their first test as rookie genin!

Heck! They'd even gotten close enough to scratch one of Orochimaru's Mud Clones! Naruto considered that a major achievement!

Of course, they'd leveled several acres of forest to do it, but still! Those exploding tags had been useful after all!

He'd even pressed the guy hard enough to earn the right to be skewered on his sword. The sannin had never even bothered to pull it out before! The genin felt honored to have earned the right to die on it, seeing as how that marked a major improvement in his threat level, to have made the sannin resort to it!

No, it was the sort of thing he wanted to repeat, after he'd had a chance to more fully refine his mastery of those jutsu, and possibly learn the rest of the contents of Sasuke's private library!

After all, if he could do that much using rough and raw techniques, might he not do better once he'd gotten them more fully refined?

It was the sort of thing he had to know!

I I I

Naruto was high, walking on clouds. He had finally done it! He had learned some awesome techniques! Okay, he may still rank as a genin, but he felt more fully a chunin every day!

Why? Well, consider!

Iruka was a chunin focused on book learning, and now Naruto was just as well educated, if he didn't have a bit of an edge on his old teacher. So, in that one way he was qualified for the new rank.

His medical skills were... feh. Best not to mention them. But even though his practical abilities stank, and were only somewhat above Academy level, he still had some ability in that department when most of the chunin hopefuls he knew of did not! AND there was not just his practicals to consider! Sakura had graduated the ninja academy with the highest test scores in their year, and the worst of the practicals, evening out almost exactly in the middle. And, well, if the Uzumaki boy could rate such a test on his medical abilities right now he'd have similar results. The academics were all there, even if his practicals weren't.

If she'd rated genin rank for that, then maybe he deserved the same on his medical abilities. Just don't ask him to fix up anybody's wounds. But that still made him a genin-effective on a talent where most would rank a flat zero!

On seals, he had explosive tags and storage scrolls, both exceedingly useful mainstays of that professional specialty, and more than most of his grade could achieve.

That reminded him. He'd have to drop by Tenten later and see if he could teach her explosive tags. The mistress of thrown weapons could gain a useful addition to her arsenal if he could teach her that quickly, as a few kunai bearing tags mixed in among her usual barrages could add a significant punch to her already deadly style.

On martial arts... Okay, chunin was not the grade he'd grant himself on those being only a top rookie genin in effect. There were many among the hopefuls who were better, even if he did have throwing weapons at the same training level, while they generally had only the academy basics.

That wasn't something he could push up for now, so he wasn't going to worry about not being better, as he currently couldn't help it. At least with his fast healing and general toughness he was not so much of a pushover. Sure, he could be beaten, but at least he could give a credible fight before going down. And while there were stronger among the hopefuls, there were also many weaker than he.

Illusions? Well, while he didn't know many, what he had he used, some quite effectively. Call it another genin rank skill.

However, with his new skills from having read Sasuke's unwanted scrolls, he felt quite unashamed in proclaiming his ninjutsu abilities that of a solid chunin! Even a fairly flexible one!

The thing was, you add many of these genin level abilities together and you'd be looking at a chunin rank ninja, as the real genin were often pathetically specialized, having only one or two abilities at their grade, not six or seven!

Okay, Naruto didn't have seven yet either. Only four at genin grade and two at chunin. But two was enough to enter the grade, having earned it, and he was not about to stop acquiring specialties!

There was, for example, the extremely useful and yet previously neglected art of stealth. A priceless ability for ninja, and yet somehow left out of his academy education. Odd that. It made you wonder, why had they admitted him at all if they'd been so determined not to teach him?

But still, no use crying over spilled milk. There was a remedy for that. He had access to Sasuke's scrolls whenever he wanted them, and among them were the instruction manuals for the courses he'd missed, stealth among them.

Stealth specialists were highly useful to ninja villages, as those were the ones you relied on for certain things you didn't trust to other ninja. A combat specialist was useful for combating the enemy, but not so much for crossing his lines or delivering messages reliably.

Also, spying came into that field, which made the youth recall what Ibiki had said at the end of countless written tests so far - those examinations were not about seeing what kind of knowledge they'd crammed into their heads. The test questions were purposefully too hard for most to answer. No, the first test of the chunin exam was about their information gathering abilities.

And, well, that was another specialty that Naruto had been neglecting. Well, no more! Spying was something you just had to do sometimes, and if that was the case, he was going to be good at it!

A Hokage could not afford any weaknesses! And he was closer than ever before!

It was an amazing day to be alive for Naruto Uzumaki.

I I I

"I think we should split up," Sasuke decided.

An upside-down Naruto descended from above him, suspended by wires he was holding in his hands. "And I think that's a TERRIBLE idea! Look at Sakura, do you think there is any ninja in this forest who COULDN'T defeat her? For that matter, you aren't so hot yourself, big-shot."

He gave the prodigy an impudent grin before withdrawing on his wires.

"Naruto!" Sakura scolded, but couldn't put any real feeling into it, as he was right. Just about any ninja she'd ever met could... "How did you learn to work with wires?" she demanded.

Naruto's impudent laugh was her answer until the boy swung out of the trees to land on a branch above her, pulling a scroll out of his jacket to show it to her. "Here. The String Reeling technique, one of the most basic of the wire based techniques. It's useful to tie down and restrict opponents. If you're good enough you can even use the wires to assist in your own movement by swinging, rappelling and, once you're good enough, ascending. Kakashi used this once on Sasuke when he was a kid, and I've been learning it lately."

"Oh," Sakura sounded humbled by this demonstration, as she'd always based her confidence in her ninja skills on the fact that she'd always been better than Naruto.

Now that wasn't seeming to be the case any longer.

Naruto's grin widened. Sasuke hadn't so much as noticed the technique scroll as his own, taken from the Uchiha's apartment and a bundle of discarded newspaper left rolled up in its old dust jacket.

And yes, Kakashi had once used the technique to restrain Sasuke when he was a bratty kid, to get him to listen to something. And, as something of an apology, had sent him the scroll with the technique the next day, which the bastard had, to all appearances, been too proud to read.

That seemed to be a pattern between them.

For Naruto, though, it had been a doorway to whole new abilities, and not inconsiderable ones at that. When Sasuke angrily declared that he couldn't find another team to prey upon with his noisy teammates hanging around, and that they might as well make camp, Naruto strung trip and warning wires all around the place where they were going to be staying.

The Uchiha was busy pouting. He'd probably never forgive Naruto for having saved his life from Gaara by using an Earth Flow River to transform Gaara's sand to mud the instant before the Desert Demon was to have messily killed Konoha's pride and joy.

He'd even saved Sasuke's balls, which Naruto felt he was being particularly generous in doing.

No, having rescued the Uchiha, literally, from the grasp of death had earned him nothing more than increased brooding. Uchihas do not have to be rescued and Uchihas do not WANT to be rescued, and the Uchiha had it under control the whole time so why did you have to interfere?

Pathetic.

Whatever happened to Kakashi's lecture on teamwork? Oh, right, it only applied to Naruto, who had to support the teacher's favorite no matter how much of a pain he was being.

The next repeat after his discovery of those scrolls in Sasuke's apartment had Naruto teaching Gaara how to get the maximum amount of blood and pain out of one broody bastard.

Now he was thinking that might be due again, sometime soon.

Sakura's eyes widened in shock as Naruto sent over a hundred clones over the campsite to prepare the immediate area, some digging pits or rigging falling log traps, which she could at least understand, while others concealed small paper tags all across the zone. Her jaw finally fell wide open as the genin she'd always dismissed as useless fortified the entire area with traps and things she couldn't even understand.

Finally, when what she guessed was the original hopped down into a shallow yet wide pit in the center of this maze of death and raised a number of earth walls, then applied another technique that allowed one to control earth and stone to shape the whole thing into a dome, which he then crafted the outer appearance of to appear as simply another rock outcropping, of which there were many in this forest, she sidled over to Sasuke where he was brooding.

"Sasuke," she whispered, terrified. "I... I think this might not be our Naruto. He seems... AaiiEEEKK!"

The kunoichi had been flipped by her hair and pinned to the ground, a kunai held an inch from her eye by a grim faced Naruto, who then immediately released her, sheathing the weapon. "There. If I'd wanted you dead you'd be dead. And I saved Sasuke earlier, which means you both owe me your lives. Now shut up and let me work. If you knew anything about me you'd know that I have enemies who want me dead. This is a perfect opportunity for them, and I don't trust them to waste it. So get inside, the shelter's built. You'll be safe in there, at least I think so."

"Na... Naruto doesn't know any Earth jutsu." Sakura backed away from him, trembling.

Naruto rolled his eyes. Okay, he'd failed that 'act like myself' role pretty badly, but his attention was hardly on them, anyway. They were hardly the issue. No, he could tell something major was going to come stalking them soon, and in this forest at this time something major meant Orochimaru.

That meant he had to get the prey victims inside and under cover SOON!

"Yes, I do. And you know why? Because I know how to READ!" He slapped her in the face with the scroll on Earth techniques and while she was fumbling with that, grabbed her arm and force marched her into the hidden entrance of the concealed stone pillbox he'd constructed, two more clones bringing in the wire-bound Uchiha seconds later.

The entrance sealed with a resounding 'Boom!' felt by all inside, leaving them in total blackness, which got illuminated a moment later by a ball of white something held in Naruto's upraised hand.

"A camping jutsu, a very minor lightning technique, one used to provide light to read by so ninja could read notes or maps or things. I found it in a scroll I got from Hinata," he lied to Sakura before she could suspect him further.

The kunoichi nodded, still terrified and unconvinced. "Na... Naruto, what does Kakashi say is... is most important?" She tested him.

"Teamwork, but then he goes and shows that he doesn't believe what he says by leaving us all to wait for him while he wastes hours each morning, an action which says he's got no respect or liking for us."

Already a couple of clones had taken stacks of wood and laid a campfire, which another Naruto lit by snapping his fingers to create a flame on the end of one, which he then applied to the wood.

"Another camping technique," the original explained. "Here. Here is the scroll they're on." He tossed that to her casually. "They've got some really useful ones: The one to read by you already saw, and the one for lighting campfires and the like. There's also one for condensing water out of the air to fill your canteen, one using wind to erase tracks behind you, another wind one for dispersing smoke or disguising scents. Then you have an earth technique for softening the ground to make a pad to sleep on, which you can then reverse in the morning to eliminate traces of your camp, another earth technique for eliminating body wastes, dispersing them through a wide area of ground so they can't be used to track you, either."

The boy gave a careless shrug. "They're all very minor, but make life out in the wild safer and more comfortable. Though, if you were going to learn one, I'd pick the water one that lets you clean clothes or dishes, or give yourself a bath if you don't mind a harsh scrub by cold water. If we are out here a couple of days you'll need it."

There came a resounding boom from outside that was not caused by any of Naruto's copies, and he looked out toward the walls. "But I don't think we'll have the time. If that's who I think it is, then we're all going to die."

I I I  
Author's Notes:

A bit rushed, but I had very little time today and not for the reasons you're thinking. It was a day spent largely with my brother and his friends, so very little time for writing.

I haven't even logged on to see my pretty little gnome mage Chibi-Usa today! She must miss me.


	12. Chapter 12

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twelve

by Lionheart

I I I

A giant snake came crashing down on Naruto's little hidden shelter with the force of a freight train, which the snake resembled as far as size was concerned.

Orochimaru had noted the extensive trap network, and been amused. It showed some ingenuity, and from what his spy Kabuto had told him, it was the Uchiha who was the only real performer on this team.

So, the Uchiha had fortified this whole area? Interesting. But of no concern to the sannin, and while he could have darted through the network untouched it was just more fun to knock on their door, so to speak, with a large snake to set the tone for this whole encounter.

The genin team came running out in disorder as their dome collapsed, and the orange one formed a seal, creating a hundred clones. Also interesting.

Well, best to get on with the test. He had to see if his chosen new body was worth his time to occupy.

"Misty Shroud technique!" Naruto cried out loudly, forming the seals before the area got blanketed by a dense and heavy fog. "Okay," he could be overheard instructing his teammates. "Just don't leave the mist and he'll have trouble finding us. Stick together and don't..."

There came a crash as one of the groups fell into a prepared pit trap. "Ow!"

"Don't worry about them!" the blond's voice called out urgently. "Stick to the plan! We've got to..."

His voice trailed off in fear as Orochimaru came looming out of the mist before them. "Kukukukuku, leaving so soon?"

The orange clad genin drew a kunai and threw it at the sannin, but it was off target. Orochimaru caught the weapon in his amazingly long tongue before it had a chance to harmlessly pass him by.

I I I

The REAL Team 7 was racing along an underground tunnel at a full sprinting velocity, two clones carrying each member, while both Sasuke and Sakura were tied up in wires so they couldn't struggle around too much. They'd all left the rock shelter together, but the blond had disguised them all as his copies while summoning his clones, while three of his clones had assumed their places and appearances to impersonate the team.

Why? Because escape tunnels from the underground shelter were too obvious. He'd tried those before, and they never worked, not even when he had a dozen of them.

But no, dig them from one of those pit traps, then fall in cursing loudly...

"Where are you taking us?" Sakura shrieked out through her gag.

"Ten more seconds to minimum safe distance," Naruto said, almost to himself.

"WHAT?" her body arched and she shrieked.

"Quiet down!" he hissed. "Back there my clones are facing Orochi-Bloody-Maru! The SNAKE SANNIN! He's here to steal your broody Uchiha's eyes! Now if you WANT TO HELP HIM by all means go on shrieking! I'll just have to cut your throat so you don't draw him down on us!"

Sakura went white and stilled in fear, not believing the first, but scared of the second. She didn't believe this was Naruto. He'd never talk that way to her. And that meant he could be anyone, who might do anything.

No, the kunoichi went very still and quiet indeed.

Naruto was shaking his head. Really, going into this, neither himself nor Sakura had the skills to take this test. He wondered what Kakashi was thinking, until he thought of Sasuke. It was probably just an attempt to elevate him as quickly as possible. The jonin-sensei of Team 7 was always pandering to the Uchiha.

It probably didn't matter to him that the other two had been so out of their depth as to be almost guaranteed to die. It was an opportunity to promote Sasuke!

Absently, he just went on grumbling at low volume to more fully answer her previous question, "Back there my clones are doing a brilliant job of lowering his expectations before they drop everything they have on him. If only we had more TIME!"

"What do you need time for? You've already got us." Sasuke whined.

"Because that wasn't the Misty Shroud technique." Naruto instructed him. "It was actually the Mist Waltz, a move that covers an area with a flammable gas that explodes when touched by flame. And there is enough of it back there to flatten a wide area AND collapse our tunnels!"

I I I

Orochimaru reached out with his long and flexible tongue to snag the poorly thrown weapon before it went by. Then his eyeballs crossed as the lightning electrical charge contained in the blade grounded through him, and all hell broke loose at once.

Clones standing by touched wires, some producing flames, others producing lightning, all of which raced across those lines trapping the entire camping area in a massive explosion as the huge ball of gas detonated, adding to the blasts of the hundreds of trigger techniques detonating simultaneously, and the pre-arranged groups of exploding tags.

That section of forest vaporized in a colossal fireball while Orochimaru's nerves were still all jangled up by having the lightning jutsu stored in the kunai jolt down his tongue.

The ground actually jumped and buckled under the force of that blow. But that blast only served as a prequel to the main event as thousands of clones emerged from where they had been hiding underneath the ground in a wide circle around the campsite, at a carefully calculated distance to survive the massive explosion.

All across the forest, pairs of concealed Naruto clones awoke. Both snapped to attention, one transformed into an old air raid siren that he'd seen in the ancient, unplumbed depths of Konoha's museum, and the other began turning the hand crank, raising a loud and unmistakable alarm, while speaking through a microphone to call out a meaning to the alert message.

"ATTENTION! EMERGENCY! ALL GENIN TEAMS MUST EVACUATE THE TESTING AREA IMMEDIATELY! AN S-CLASS MISSING NINJA HAS ENTERED THE ZONE AND BEGUN ATTACKING STUDENTS! ALL GENIN TEAMS ARE INSTRUCTED TO FALL BACK UNTIL REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE!"

Considering that there were hundreds of alarm teams like this one, the alarm began blaring at huge volume across all of the forest at once.

Then they began to repeat it.

Orochimaru Body Flickered out of the expanding fireball hurt but not seriously injured, only to fall directly into the laps of clones who had been waiting for him, his feet sticking to the branch he'd landed on as they hit him with everything they had, a dozen different Dragon Flame Projection streams struck him all at once, with lightning coursing in from all directions along wires and through the air.

How had the kid known where he'd be?

The Snake Sannin flickered twice more, each time receiving the same instant assaults upon his arrival, before he cleared the area around him with a mass, wide area technique and called Manda, the boss of the snake summons.

Crowds of Naruto came charging at him, each wielding twin whips composed of solid lightning. Others charged forward above their heads spinning wires about like mad, demented spiders, trying to catch or lead other attacks to him. While elsewhere, hundreds of Narutos standing on tree branches drew back bows and let loose a hailstorm of arrows, each being guided to track and follow their target by more wires.

Multiplying himself with his own clones, Orochimaru began to counterattack.

Massive explosions and cutting winds scythed through the orange wave, but always some survived and hails of thrown weapons came back in return over the heads of the jutsu wielding close assault fighters.

He raised his arms, flashing through handseals, and the ground rose up and began churning the assault force into ruins. Then the ground turned to mud beneath his own feet just at the same time as a tremendous cutting force of wind came rushing toward him.

Orochimaru Flickered, placing himself at what he thought to be a safe distance from the battlefield, only to get caught on arrival by a lightning whip wrapping around his right hand and severing it.

Then the tree he was on exploded, already primed with a hundred explosive tags.

Out of the corner of his eye Orochimaru caught sight of Manda, his boss summon, caught up in a tornado being cut apart by winds and assaulted with a barrage of lightning sustained by close to six hundred Narutos standing on the ground maintaining that arm of this assault.

Actually injured, the sannin gave a feral grimace before shedding his skin and in the process healing all of those accumulated wounds, restoring his hand.

Then he drew his sword.

Clones began to die by hundreds and thousands. Before they'd been quite cut down by half, however, through the hail of kunai and arrows, a blizzard web of wires and a constant barrage of all five elements out of all sides at once, the sannin heard a tremendous noise and saw an enormous tree bearing down on him, dozens of orange clad genins perched upon its limbs as they animated the entire forest giant as one massive puppet.

Then a second and a third, then a fourth forest giant strode out of the haze of explosions, all controlled by Naruto clones perched upon them.

Kankuro had been very helpful, chatting about his profession, and had let his audience learn far more than he probably would've felt was wise, if he'd been aware that he'd been doing so much of it.

The ground shuddered and shook as a two hundred foot tall forest giant slammed a fist down atop the Snake Sannin's head.

As he reappeared on another part of that battlefield, where two of his mud clones had just seconds before become pincushions under the barrage of guided arrows, Orochimaru had to admit, he was actually impressed.

That was before the tree he was on exploded again.

I I I

All of Konoha looked up to see the tower of fiery destruction as that initial trap had gone off. Then the dark forest, black at night, lit up with flash after flash of techniques going off over a wide area. Trees began to explode, one every few seconds, lighting the night as brilliant torches.

That was no genin match in there. Something was wrong, as that looked more like a full on shinobi WAR!

Shaken out of his bed, the Hokage rushed over to his crystal ball, and when he peered within saw the face of his orange clad little friend battling his former student Orochimaru out in the forest.

He left to lead a relief column of reinforcements at once, hundreds of jonin and chunin rushing ahead or forming up behind him as the town's regular genin raced to their guard posts and aid stations.

Jiraiya silently joined the group leading the counterassault.

They were not far away before the voice over the sirens began to make sense. "ATTENTION! EMERGENCY! ALL GENIN TEAMS MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! OROCHIMARU HAS ENTERED THE FOREST! PLEASE FALL BACK UNTIL REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE!"

Grim faced, the ninja flowed into the burning forest towards the center of the commotion, where a blazing giant tree puppet fell to smash, wreathed in flames, upon the earth, while another tree behind it exploded, visible even at several kilometers range, as was the twisting serpent caught in a tornado.

That snake was all the confirmation anyone even vaguely informed needed.

Now grim faced himself, Jiraiya paused long enough to summon Gamabunta, his own boss summon, before racing ahead of the pack.

The normally recalcitrant summon made no objections at all as it saw the scope of the destruction it had been called for.

I I I

Naruto dragged himself painfully out of the mud just as the local alarm box got silenced in an awful "SQUAWK!" of abused and presumably destroyed equipment, almost certainly accompanied by the operator clones.

Their tunnel had collapsed, but a swift Underground Move jutsu had saved them. It had not, however, made the save a pleasant one.

The area was a scene out of hell, trees ablaze all around them. Smoke filled the air and shards of nearby explosions littered the ground while rains of burning embers drifted down to coat the broken, ash covered surface.

The air was hot and heavy, so Naruto transformed three of his escort clones into horses, piling his team onto their backs, under precautionary illusions as completely unrelated Konoha ninja, they took off racing as fast as they could go toward the borders around the forest.

The horses would choke to death on this smoky fog before long, but it would save his own team's lungs not to be forced to breathe it in the great gulping lungfuls they'd need if they were the ones running.

As it was, they were just another anonymous genin team among hopefully scads of those escaping.

They got almost half a mile out of the destruction zone before Orochimaru had finished off enough of his clones to start looking around, and saw the team racing purposefully away.

They were not the only mounted ones, another team was racing away riding weasels, but they had an unusual drive and determination to make speed that caught the veteran ninja's attention.

When he appeared ahead of them, however, the boy on the lead horse formed a seal and another four thousand damnable clones appeared! What was worse was that fully half of them transformed and began running every which way!

Calling up an enormous amount of chakra, Orochimaru summoned up half a dozen of his largest snakes and set them to battling the interminable horde!

The area began to fog and he immediately flickered out before it all blew up in one, great mushrooming fireball of explosions, only to be met by throwing weapons on wires, guided arrows, and homicidal clones flinging about dozens and hundreds of lightning, fire, earth, wind and water techniques!

But the selection was poor, and knowing what they used he began to counter it far more effectively, conserving his chakra and getting less distracted.

There! Out of the hordes of clones who'd transformed, fallen back, then transformed and charged again only a few teams had kept running, but he was able to spot the ones most likely to be the real prey.

It was not his first, his second, or even his third guess as to which was correct, however he did soon make a successful intercept, making sure of those others by slaughtering them all in turn.

It was long past the time for playing games.

Orochimaru had been getting progressively more upset, and now he was downright mad. This had all started as a simple test of the abilities of the Uchiha, and he'd yet to see the genin he'd come for throw so much as a punch! All the time it had been this orange swarm interrupting his plans, while his teammates got carried as cargo towards safety!

At this point Sarutobi could not fail to be forewarned of his presence and his plans. So there was nothing left but to nab the Uchiha boy and make haste out of town, hoping that the precious Sharingan eyes were enough to offset whatever weaknesses lay in the body itself.

Lunging at the orange obstacle to his plans, Orochimaru succeeded only in sinking his precious blade hilt deep in a stumpy log the boy had Switched out with, not even a flicker ahead of time to warn of the technique!

The boy was astonishingly good, and under better circumstances the sannin would have felt pleased to pervert the youngster away to join his own village. But now, it was time for him to DIE!

I I I

Naruto knew well that he had a ridiculous amount of chakra. It had been huge even before he'd begun the resets, and had only grown larger as he'd gained knowledge. Also, what he had seemed even larger yet as his control expanded to where he was not nearly so wasteful of that precious energy.

Still, having fought Orochimaru before, he knew he had his limits, and the boy was coming pretty close to those now. It would not be long before the sannin sank his sword into his chest again.

But then he heard a voice that chilled his blood, crying out in fear - not for her sake, but for his own!

"Naruto!"

Almost before he was aware of it, Rock Lee with all five of the Celestial Gates he could open thrown wide smashed into the side of the sannin and began to beat the tar out of him!

Naruto's eyes got wrenched around to where they'd somehow caught up to other Konoha teams who'd been making their escape, and saw Hinata there staring at him with wide and fearful eyes.

Right before Orochimaru cleared the area with another one of those devastating wide area techniques.

"YOU KILLED HINATA!" Veins bulged on Naruto's forehead and teeth grew clenched as an aura of red energy swirled up around him.

Lee was still pressing the assault, mauling Orochimaru badly as the snake sannin had underestimated the unassuming genin until the martial artist had closed to deadly ranges - and not let up a second since then. Dozens of techniques got tried by the sannin, most of which got interrupted rather rudely as the green clad boy pounded him with enough force, from enough angles, to send him careening around like a pinball, only to get met and pounded on again by the dangerously supercharged genin.

But Naruto was seeing none of it. Hinata was dead, killed by Orochimaru. He'd learned to accept, even find humor in the deaths of his own teammates, but Hinata was special.

Hinata must never again be allowed to die!

The boy was already in the sewer of his mind, noting that the water had drained to where they were now merely moist tunnels. But he didn't care. He raced until he stood before the fox's cage, and shouted to his prisoner, "YOU! Yes, you! Do you swear to destroy my enemies? To avenge Hinata's murder and chase down Orochimaru no matter where he goes or tries to hide?"

"Why should I?" came the demon's mocking reply.

With an angry leer of his own, Naruto leaned in close to the bars, putting his hand on the flimsy paper seal that kept that door locked. "Because if you do, then I'm pulling this off."

"YES!" The demon instantly agreed. "I SO SWEAR!"

And then Naruto ripped off the paper seal.

Outside, where Orochimaru had just finished off Lee, having barely survived the boy's mauling on top of all that had been done to him previously, the blond boy's body rippled and swelled, changing as it grew and transformed into the Nine Tailed Demon Fox, which roared as it finally got free!

Orochimaru wet himself.

Then it was as if a nuke went off in the Forest of Death as the demon beast unleashed its full power.

I I I

Naruto yawned and rolled over in bed, sitting up to rub at his eyes. Well, that was one experience he wasn't of a mind to repeat any time soon. Stomping all over Konoha after eating the Third Hokage, trapped in his own mind all that time, watching as a mere passenger while the demon fox used his body.

He came to a sudden halt as he entered his bathroom and noticed he had acquired a set of foxy accessories, a pair of red fox ears and a tail gently swinging out behind, while his whiskers stood out as actual stiff hairs instead of the facial lines they'd always been before.

"Well, that was interesting," came a voice within his mind. "We've got to do that again sometime."

"No way!" The boy suddenly shouted. "No! You were NOT supposed to EAT MY FRIENDS!"

"What did you expect?" the demon's voice mocked in reply. "That was never a part of our bargain. Only to destroy your enemies, not to preserve your friends. Besides, your mate was already dead anyway. You recall that part about avenging her murder?"

"Didn't I do such an excellent job?" the demon's voice turned to laughter.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Well, a scene like this has been building for quite some time, and it is going to have repercussions, naturally. Only one of which will be Naruto being far more careful in regards to a certain tailed beast.


	13. Chapter 13

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirteen

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto stared at his new foxy accessories in horror.

"Do you like it?" the demon's voiced mocked from within his mind. "I did some redecorating while I was out," it teased. "I really think it brightens up this dreary old place. Don't you think so?"

"Ho... HOW!" The boy pulled on one of his new ears. It hurt, A LOT!

"Careful, they're sensitive," the demon teased.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!" the boy cried out in shock.

"Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that, nothing really all that significant," the fox roared with mocking laughter.

"But... how is it STILL here!" the boy demanded.

"Find out for yourself, why don't you?" his prisoner sniffed, knowing it was being cruel by not answering.

Life really sucked sometimes.

I I I

The first thing Naruto discovered the fox had done was when he tried to hide his new accessories, and bungled the technique twice in a row before he finally figured out what was wrong.

Whatever the fox had done increased his chakra stores enormously, but he wasn't going to call that a good thing, as it had utterly destroyed his control.

Where before it had been like trying to control a firehose, now, when he called upon his chakra it was like trying to aim a geyser.

Yes, the force was many times greater, but without control all of that power was meaningless. It had set him back to his academy level, where he had the worst control of any would-be ninja in the village's history. With his ability to control his chakra this messed up all of his techniques were shot, he couldn't even make more than two hundred Shadow Clones.

His basic Clones were back to looking half dead.

The boy sat down and wept when he discovered that. All of that hard work, all of that effort, gone! Just GONE!

"DAMN YOU FOX!" he shouted inside of his mind.

"Don't talk like that," the demon scolded. "I am not your enemy. I cannot be. I have sworn to destroy your enemies, and the Celestial Emperor forces us to keep our oaths. So when you proposed a bargain, and I agreed, and you paid my price, our deal was sealed. Even if... the price was not all I'd been hoping, you still paid it, and I am still bound. Don't make any mistake - I am NOT your friend! But I don't care to destroy myself, so I don't dare be your enemy either." There came some cruel chuckling. "That doesn't mean I can't annoy or even torment you, however."

"But... my friends."

"Come on, admit it," the demon teased. "All of Konoha are your enemies. I only did my job by destroying them for you."

The boy froze, thinking. "But that means, if Hinata gets murdered..."

"Yes," he could feel the demon gloating, almost imagine the wide, toothy grin. "That's what I'm hoping. If she does get murdered again, I might just be let loose to go avenge her again."

Naruto gathered himself enough to shoot a cruel jibe back, "I wouldn't count on it, Fluffy. Since Orochimaru is out there, and you aren't free to go out and track down HIM!"

"Why don't you give it a try?" the demon shot back, angrily. "Go and slit that pretty little neck of hers with your kunai. I just might be let loose to avenge her, by killing YOU! Perhaps I'll get full freedom after all!"

"Only an enemy would propose such a thing," Naruto sneered right back.

Suddenly he could feel the demon's shock a moment before its pain. He was just as surprised as it was at this happening.

"F.. for... forgive me," it stuttered out between clenched teeth, still angry but now in immense anguish as its powers started to turn upon itself.

"Why should I?" he shot back the words it had used on him the other night. "I'd be FAR better off if you were DEAD!"

"N.. now. Do... don't be too.. OU, hasty!" it gasped out. "IieeAAH..! I can... still be... UuOOOH, useful!"

"What? You're going to teach me some techniques?"

"What would I care for useless human skills?" it gasped out it a silly, high pitched whine as its pain jumped up to another threshold. "What could you teach an ant about its profession?"

Naruto touched his lip, thinking of what he could ask for. "A bloodline?"

"I have none to offer!" The fox writhed, lashing about worse than Sasuke did when he lost his balls. "Whhh..AT would you do if an ant drone came and demanded you make it a queeeeen?"

"Then, if you don't have anything to offer..." he teased it right back.

"I know mysteries of life beyond everything your human medics have to offer!" it screamed, actually eating itself out from the inside now.

"But how many apply to humans?"

The fox did not answer, writhing in torment. Perhaps it had no answer.

Naruto grinned. The fox was going to die, and by the looks of it he was going to be free of his prisoner forever.

"MASTER!" it called out in agony. "FORGIVE YOUR HUMBLE SLAVE!"

He thought about that for a moment.

"Okay."

As soon as that, the demon's pain was over.

"So," Naruto cheerfully shot back. "What can you do to give me my chakra control back?"

But he got no answer. On investigation he found his passenger comatose from oath-inflicted injuries, closer to destruction than he would've thought. It looked like he'd caught it barely a heartbeat short of dead, and in a way that its own tremendous power could not immediately fix.

Made sense, in a way, as it had been its own tremendous power causing it.

"Great," the boy groused. "Now I get the fox to do what I want and what can it do? Nothing! It's too close to dead. Feh, my life sucks sometimes."

The boy stood, looking around his dingy old apartment, and sighed. "Well, I can't stay here. If I miss the test Kakashi and my team will come looking for me, and it will be worse if they find me like this. I can't go the library in this condition, and I can't transform - all of my techniques are completely shot."

Dang! It was back to stage one! And he'd been so CLOSE!

"No brooding!" he scolded himself. "That way lies the Uchiha side!"

"Well," glancing at his jacket, he picked it up and began to put it on. "No way out but through, sometimes. Let's see what the villagers think of this."

Halfway through getting ready Naruto already had on a wide, prankster grin.

I I I

Naruto bounced down the road grinning like a loon, his new ears twitching every which way and tail swishing along merrily behind him.

The reaction of the villagers was intense! While normally they glared and sneered at him, today that was accompanied by pasty-white faces filled with fear. In fact, terror seemed to overcome hatred in most of those cases.

Looking in the mirror after donning his clothes (newly tailored to fit his tail through a hole in the back) he'd discovered he had a total of four ears, his usual two on the sides of his head, and now this new set decorating the top. All of them were fully functional.

In fact, the new set functioned like a pair of parabolic microphones, in that they could pick up sounds that were really faint or far away, so long as they were pointed that direction.

And they kept twitching around uncontrollably. Naruto must have located a hundred rats that he'd never noticed before on his way to the testing center.

"Oy! Hinata-chan! Wait up! We can walk the rest of the way together!" He called out to his favorite person, and she stopped and waited for him.

Amazingly, she didn't react at all to his 'foxy accessories', just smiling and happy to be walking with him.

'Must think they're some kind of prank,' Naruto thought, then grinned even wider. 'Well, that IS something I would do!'

At that, he could hardly repress a merry chuckle. Oh yes! He could do stuff with this!

"Naruto! Stop fooling around!" Sakura called back to nag him on her way past to greet the Uchiha.

Kiba, coming up to greet Hinata, as she was his teammate, looked Naruto up and down, then sniffed a couple of times. "Oy, I don't get it." He told Naruto, scratching his own chin. "You smell like a fox, and look like one, too. What's the gag?"

Naruto smiled so wide he had to close his eyes to make room for it as he shot his hand high and called out loud, "Hey! I thought I'd have to be really clever to pass this test, and so I dressed the part!"

Half of the younger set broke out laughing, while some among the older ones looked on, horrified, but then they rolled their eyes and scowled at his bad taste. By noon it would be all over town that the clown had done it as a prank on everyone. This, from the inventor of the Sexy technique, and it would be totally believable, too.

Their anger would spike a bit, but the relief would largely drown it out.

As they entered the testing zone together, his team plus Hinata's, which meant that Lee would not be making an appearance to fight Sasuke, they walked right up to the disguised chunin team guarding the illusionary door.

The pair turned pasty white upon spotting Naruto, and the gleeful genin raised his perfectly human nose to the air, declaring, "Something smells fishy here." He smiled, baring his ordinary human teeth at the chunin.

The pair drew back, drawing weapons, hands trembling.

"Hinata-chan!" Naruto dived toward her bookbag. "You didn't tell me you brought TUNA! We'll have to go out to lunch together later!"

The chunin gave heartfelt sighs and relaxed, while the crowds of genin looking on began laughing at their antics, and at Hinata's rosy blush.

When they got outside the testing room door, Kakashi and Kurenai, who were waiting for them, saw Naruto among the kids and instantly stiffened, going from casual and relaxed stances to alert and battle ready ones.

"Oy! Kakashi!" Naruto called out, having one of the times of his life. "I let the Kyubi out last night to catch a rabbit and look what he did to me!"

The two jonin face-flopped.

"Naruto!" Kakashi scolded, as the pair of teachers got up from the floor, rubbing their foreheads. "You must not joke like that! Drop that disguise before someone hurts you for it!"

"No!" the boy laughingly retorted. "I don't feel like it!" He adopted a very unconvincing pose of sudden feral impulses. "In fact, I can't," he wheezed out through exaggerated front teeth. "I am being overcome by my impulses! The instincts of a fox are taking hold! I must! I MUST! KISS HINATA-CHAN!"

And he turned around and proceeded to do so, loudly, messily, and noisily, but to her great delight. The whiskers added an extra something to it, he was sure, as she'd never wriggled in enjoyment quite that way before.

Kurenai put her face in her hand.

Kakashi rolled his eyes and poofed away to go read porn.

Naruto was grinning as he made out with Hinata right there in the hallway. By overacting everyone assumed this was a prank! And they EXPECTED pranks from him! Especially ones in bad taste!

This was working!

When they entered the testing chamber, Naruto stood forth and challenged the entire room, shouting, "Oy! My name is Naruto Uzumaki! Living container for the Nine Tailed Demon Fox! And..." he began to twitch, acting out spasms, "the seal! It's breaking! It's BREAKING!"

"Naruto!" Sakura clobbered him on the head, knocking him down off of the top of the desk. So she scolded him where he lay on the floor. "Don't make lame jokes like that! It isn't funny!"

The class, tense as brittle glass, relaxed at this statement, rolling their eyes and passing it off as just another lame joke from a class clown.

It was priceless, one of the best jokes ever! He was very nearly admitting the truth and no one would believe him!

It almost made up for utterly destroying his abilities as a ninja.

Almost, but not quite.

Getting up and rubbing his head a little, he caught the flat and hostile gazes of the Sand siblings from across the room. So he hopped over there directly. "Hey! Gaara! How is Shukaku? Is the one-tailed demon raccoon treating you right? Can you tell him the Kyubi says hi?"

"What do you want?" Gaara asked him low and level, his gaze hostile.

"To make out with your sister?" the clown teased.

Gaara blinked, nonplused. Then he thought about it. "Alright."

Naruto's face went slack in surprise.

"Gaara?" Temari pled with her brother, plainly horrified.

"Demon containers need their lovin'," he told her in flat, unemotional tones.

Temari looked at her younger brother, terrified, before turning a wan smile on the blond boy. "So, uh, where shall we do this?"

"Uh, I dunno..." the Konoha genin temporized, looking around for a way out of this. Spotting his salvation on the other side of the room, he grinned. "Hey! Hinata-chan! You've got girlfriend rights! So you have veto power. Do you mind if I make out with this Sand chick here?"

Already turning back to tell Temari 'thanks, but no thanks' he heard Hinata stutter out behind him. "N.. no, i.. it's A... alright."

His jaw practically scraped the floor, turning back, he shouted, "Hey! Are you sure? I'd hate to hurt your feelings! It's ok to tell me 'no'."

"No," she stuttered, playing with her fingertips. "It's alright. You go ahead. I... wouldn't want to be your first time. So go ahead and... do... whatever."

Her nerve broke and she hid behind Shino, would could out-stare a carving.

Naruto got a wan smile of his own, and turned back to the Sand siblings, where Gaara was looking at him with a 'Well? Get on with it!' expression.

Naruto gulped.

I I I

The Kyubi container was utterly humiliated.

First the demon sends his chakra all out of whack, messing with his control so badly that it was impossible to reliably use any of his techniques except Shadow Clone, and that was down to five percent of his previous numbers.

Having no control sucked.

Then, they passed the written test as usual, and when they went on to the expected Orochimaru fight, Naruto had hung back, teasing Sasuke, and the creepy of snake guy had beaten up Sasuke, bitten him, then let them pass!

Worse yet! Sakura had hung all over the Uchiha all night long, when Naruto couldn't even get a CAMPING technique to go right, and the screwy Uchiha had somehow managed to live through the night!

So much for healing techniques. Apparently it was all Sakura, although what she did except fret and moisten his forehead with a rag was beyond the boy.

No, that was a big-time blow to his ego. First, the fight was all Sasuke, then his survival was all Sakura.

Wasn't anything he did going to matter?

Didn't he make any difference in this town?

Sometimes he just didn't know why he cared, anymore.

Getting beat up on by the Sound team made him afraid, but when he fought Kiba in the preliminary matches (after having been saved out of the forest by Kabuto - again) it got confirmed.

His chakra control hadn't been all he'd lost.

Somehow, when the demon beast had been out it had done more than left him with fox ears. His body was now stronger and faster, and a few inches taller (he guessed that no one had noticed mostly because of the ears). But while that could have been a good thing...

It wasn't.

Why? Because it had destroyed what martial arts ability he'd had. Oh, if he'd had the muscle memory then he probably could've adapted. If it had come to him gradually then he probably wouldn't even noticed adapting to those changes. But coming at him all at once, when he still had to think through all of those complex motions, and now the motions he'd memorized were all slightly off...

The boy took Hinata off to a corner so he could cry on her shoulder after losing his match against Kiba.

His unarmed fighting skills were now worse than before, thrown off by his changes and not even having the brawling spirit he'd relied upon before. And he couldn't retrain until he had enough chakra control back to perform the needed transformations to disguise himself under!

He'd not even been able to summon a fart when he'd needed one.

No, in that match he'd been humiliated, and on top of that he'd felt terrible about NOT cheering Hinata on in her match against her cousin, when he knew she'd needed him to, but when doing so would've led to her getting hurt.

Failing at the prelims was as far as he'd ever gotten, yet he'd lost everything to get there...

And he hadn't even gotten through.

I I I

A couple of resets worth of research had turned up several interesting things that concerned Naruto's new problem, while making no apparent difference in the nature of the injuries of the slumbering fox.

Chakra had a spiritual component. One's chakra could also have a physical effect on the body, as that was where Naruto got both his original whisker marks, as well as his regeneration.

Apparently, pulling off that seal had sent such a surge of the demon's chakra through his body that even after the reset, there was enough still free, added to his own, to have greatly amplified his already present marks.  
Either that or something about the surge of energy had imprinted on his chakra system the idea that his body ought to be more fox-like, and so his body had gone ahead and 'regenerated' the 'missing' pieces.

It wasn't like there were books already written about this. Naruto had to do some guessing on his own, and he knew they might not be accurate.

All of this research had to be performed on the sly, of course. The people at the library had already been bad enough without his changes. But, at least he got to practice his arts of stealth and information gathering during the odd times he was feverishly going over his chakra control exercises again, trying to regain some of what he'd lost.

It would be a long route to get there, however. So he might as well practice his ordinary, non-chakra powered techniques of simply sneaking around and hiding, working out with wires (what could be done without chakra to enhance their strength and lengthen and/or contract them).

It left him feeling like only half a ninja, at most.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Golly! Dont'cha love instant power ups!

And now back to my lovely Chibi-Usa, who I know loves me. My own bouncing pink haired princess. Maybe I should spend more time with her? Ah, yes, my own precious chibi darling.


	14. Chapter 14

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fourteen

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto didn't have tons to do while slowly rebuilding his chakra control. All things seemed to wait on it, so he was at his wit's end the first couple of weeks trying to have something that could occupy his mind other than the interminable chakra training drills.

He'd shown next to no progress during that time, and it was a matter of mental survival to find some way to distract himself from his frustrations.

And no, the Kyubi hadn't shown any clear improvement in all that period. It might as well have been dead, except it wasn't. Naruto wasn't that lucky.

So he began churning through books at the library at an increased pace, sneaking in and smuggling them out because they wouldn't let him inside, and one of those books was on metallurgy.

That gave Naruto pause.

Here he was bored practically out of his mind. The Uchiha lands had a couple of smithies on it, and shinobi DID use weapons and armor. So, if he wanted to, this was something he could pursue while working to get his chakra control back.

So he did it.

Konoha did have several blacksmiths who repaired or created weapons and armor. At first, after finding out where those were, he did some spying on them to watch what they did, but that grew boring very quickly as what they did never changed on his unending day.

So he gathered up what money he had and sent Hinata to special order things. The darling girl never objected to those requests, and felt privileged and honored to do so for him, no matter how weird it was what he wanted her to order, and whenever possible she'd kick in her own money to help.

He loved that girl. No one else was like her. An entire town hating his guts and she was the sweetest thing to him, in spite of having so little confidence herself.

Anyway, with her help and some practice concealing himself so he could spy and observe, he got a smithing education. Most of the shops had apprentices, so often enough he could secretly listen as the master taught the younger smith (often a relative) how to do this or that, and parabolic ears were really useful to overhear what they were saying as they did so.

Since the various shops that had apprentices had them at different levels, he could have Hinata order the same thing at different places each day to pick up more than he'd known before, starting with the basics.

So, having picked up what he could by secretly observing and reading what he could from books, he figured out how to get Sarutobi to grant him the Uchiha properties in spite of his new appearance, picked up a hammer and went to work giving it a try.

Only to immediately go back to hit the books and overhear some more, as he had obviously missed some important stuff. Then he had to struggle to figure out the pieces he couldn't arrange to overhear, but after that things got better.

With lots of spare time to experiment in, he even got pretty good. It took him a while, but just about any ordinary person could be trained by a smith to be a smith in about six months (more if you wanted the specialized, detail oriented stuff), and Naruto was anything but ordinary.

He'd learned harder techniques faster, and with less help than he had here.

Okay, granted, the frequent resets were actually a detriment for him here as he had very little ability to see the progress of his own work, as what he couldn't make in a day and a half didn't happen, as he'd either reset or be off in the Forest of Death by then.

So, still having ability to produce Shadow Clones, albeit much reduced, he put them to work helping him, he himself learning to make small pieces or bits of larger ones that he then put them to work crafting other days while he went on to learning other parts of those same projects.

It was not long before he had a decent skill level, but he did not stop there. He had no reason to. There was more to learn and he was bored, so he began to go from the ordinary village smith level of pot hammerer and nail maker on to crafting weapons and armor as had originally interested him.

It took him no time at all to find out that his tools sold to him by the villagers had to have been special made to be as bad as they were. Cheap metal, dull blades nothing could effectively sharpen, and balance so bad it could not have been an accident, Naruto was crafting better on his first, clumsy attempts.

Then, as he grew competent on basic ninja tools he branched outwards, and outwards, finding himself working on swords and samurai armor, giant blades similar to Zabuza's gigantic cleaver, even branching out yet further making clocks and other intricate mechanisms.

He even started crafting intricate little toys for himself.

Why? Because there was more to learn and he was bored. Besides, he got to play with them, after. He got into a clock making thing because many of the armor pieces had joints and fasteners more intricate than he could arrange to overhear instructions for, and the only books in the library he could find that dealt with small, precision things were about clockmaking. So he did so. And then later lockmaking, learning how to make all sorts of intricate things, from sturdy bolts to complicated puzzle locks granting far greater security than he'd ever enjoyed. Then, when he took that back to the armor pieces he found he was actually quite good at it, really amazingly good at it.

And, by necessity, he was fast. If he wasn't fast the project couldn't get done and he wouldn't learn if it was any good or not.

Soon, his clones all working together and occupying two shops to do it, he could have himself wearing a full suit of armor in half a day. But, as he did so, he found the stuff clunky and uncomfortable, restricting his movements and heavy so it slowed him down.

And, well, as he was already the one making it he just fiddled with the designs a little, adding a little detail here, or adjusting a joint there, adapting a trick he'd learned from making joints on toy soldiers to make something less awkward and more comfortable to wear, and so on.

There are several details restricting the nature of armor in general. One of those was the materials used, and he hadn't any unusual abilities there, but another was the skills of the craftsman involved, which in his case were shooting up remarkably fast as he wanted desperately for something to occupy his mind and so fiddled with everything, playing with details and doing the work over and over until he was becoming almost frightfully good. And a further limiter on armor and weapon quality was the amount of time a smith was willing to put into not only creating it, but fine tuning it to get it all right, personalizing the fittings for optimal use and flexibility by one individual.

And, well, time was something he had too much of! By the time he'd devised, and redevised, reworked and reengineered every conceivable, and more than a couple of ridiculous, complete sets of ninja outfitting for himself he began to do the same for Hinata, then Tenten, Ino, Temari, then Gaara and Kankuro until Kurenai chased him away when he approached her with a tape measure.

He didn't WANT to outfit his teammates! They could go without as far as he was concerned. But anyone else was fair game, and he'd gotten a fair bit into creating a set for Shikamaru until he decided that didn't interest him anymore. It wasn't new any longer.

Still, there was plenty to do with refining the sets he'd already started. He'd find pretexts to get those people to try on his work until he could confidently say he'd gotten them right. Only, by then, his standards of 'right' were pretty awesome, including a precisely calibrated fit and amazing balance.

He got that good by having a great ability to learn, near infinite time available, plenty of willing help in the form of Shadow Clones who knew as much as he did, an inexhaustible supply of materials to work with as whatever he used one day was still available to him the next, and... Most people, when faced with a project, are willing to say 'good enough' because they don't want to undo, then redo, all of the work they'd done before.

And, well, since Naruto HAD to redo all of that work anyway, there was never a 'good enough' point to stop him.

He'd also check for protective value, at first by hanging those suits of armor on dummies, then pounding them to scrap metal with swords, knives and other weapons, some he devised, but others he found lying around the Uchiha estate. And he wasn't satisfied if he could slip in a senbon needle before he'd warped the metal under his attacks. Then he went to work to devise armor that didn't warp so easily when he pounded on it.

Why? Well, it seemed all he had was time, and it might matter some day.

Also, he got to try and adapt what he knew of martial arts to his new body, thinking through each step and trying to compensate for his changes, while he pounded those armor sets to scrap as targets. It didn't have the ease or satisfaction of getting taught, but it was doing some good. If nothing else it made him not feel so trapped and helpless.

It was hard to describe his disappointment over losing the use of his chakra techniques, but this smithing (and, to a lesser degree, martial arts) was a skill he could keep so long as he still had all of his limbs and a sound body - none of which he was likely to lose so long as he could regenerate.

He'd learned that when Kakashi had blown a hole through his chest.

During this time he was also practicing stealth and information gathering. Before it had almost been too easy for him to shapeshift and then learn whatever secrets he wanted by being in the form of a student someone who had that knowledge wanted to teach.

Now... it was more difficult.

Not only was he the Demon Brat, he had those stinking fox ears marking him even more distinctly, rendering him easy to notice even when he'd changed out of his orange jumpsuits and adopted less loud and obvious mannerisms.

Still, being harder only made it so he had more to learn, and an admittedly more difficult time getting there. But he had a good start, from breaking in to steal the Uchiha's scrolls and manuals on that subject, so he at least knew what he had to do in order to get started.

Thing like his waving tail gave him away at first, but even that he learned how to control and compensate for eventually.

So he began hunting secrets. Not any particular secrets, just secrets in general. He began by breaking into the houses of Sasuke's fangirls to read their diaries, just on the odd chance that he could get something to help him understand why they all drooled over him so much.

It didn't help much. Girl-speak might as well have been a code.

But, codebreaking was also a part of the ninja profession, so he went about breaking it, or trying to anyway.

Soon he discovered that he was lacking the key, and, in the principle of all code breaking, he needed to either find or divine the answers. So, out of that desire he began to hang around bathhouses, a safe distance away, not peeking, just listening in to their conversations with his parabolic ears to see what they talked about when they were all alone.

It was an entirely different language. The words were the same, but the meanings?

Still, it had some use to him. There were often nuggets of insights in there, just buried under loads and loads of fluff. So he began doing the same tricks with ladies at restaurants, shopping, or hanging out with each other in all the places they'd go.

Interesting, but even listening in on a whole village proved to be too small a sample over one day. He either had to find a way to observe over a longer space of time, impossible as he'd never yet gotten though the whole forest AND the preliminary rounds, which always reset him, or find some ways to mix it up a little so that he could observe more conversations that weren't just repeats of what he'd overheard before.

A little while ago he would've joined them using his Sexy technique, just to be on hand to steer those conversations more interesting ways. But that route was presently closed to him.

So he had to give up on the Great Girl Decode for now, leaving that until he had more options.

What he did begin to find, as he broke into more houses searching for a wider variety of things (and, getting caught on occasion, but those only stirred him up to learn more) he found recipes, which he enjoyed as they generally improved his cooking skill as well as his diet (Ino had only known so much to teach him) bank account numbers, wedding photos and all sorts of stuff, all of which he devoured.

Then he happened upon song.

He'd always refused voice lessons during his time at the music store, as for the Uchiha it would have been too far outside the role he'd been playing for it to be believed. But it was music and, here was the best part, it was NOT limited by what he could get his fingers to do!

That's right, no muscle memory restrictions there. Oh, he couldn't properly condition his voice, but that was all right, as he couldn't condition his arms to throw kunai, either.

Just like he couldn't go anywhere with those weight training books, or the flexibility training that all sounded so useful. He could lift all of the weights in the world and it couldn't do him any good, form splits until he bled and the next day there'd be no benefit.

He could do all of the exercising he wanted, but in the end no matter the pain there would be no gain. It was that simple.

But that was alright, he didn't have to worry about that, because there was still so much singing he could do without training to reach the real high end vocal tricks and stuff.

The villager's eyes about popped out of their heads when they woke up some mornings to a two-hundred voice choir that was all Naruto. Okay, he didn't have the different vocal sections, having only one voice, but it wasn't bad either. They could sing a shopping list if they had to, and make it sound good.

And that mattered to him, as it began to feel like there was a crack in the glacier, that the wall that held him back now wasn't perfect, that it could be gotten through.

He'd just have to find those teeny tiny cracks and widen them to do it.

I I I

Naruto had learned, through frequent experience, as he'd actually had to play up the whole "I am a fox" angle in order for the older generation who knew about his condition to take the thing as a joke, that Temari didn't know how to kiss any better than Hinata-chan.

Must be lack of experience in both cases. After all, Hinata didn't have enough bravery to, and only liked him in any case, while the other was Gaara's sister and so almost as much of an outcast and pariah as he was.

The odd thing was, when he was NOT acting over the top and weird about it, the jonin and chunin of Konoha would all arrest and interrogate him for the day. So it was just easier to kiss Temari than think up new things to do each day that were sufficiently over the top to allay those suspicions!

Oh well, the fox boy not only learned how to find and push her buttons until he could get her to squealing during the middle of an exam (having figured out what place in line he'd have to stand in in order to sit next to her), but also how to do so before the test started, and in such a way that he could slip her the test answers so she didn't have to rely on Kankuro.

Although leaving her hickies on her inner arm in the shape of the answers proved to be too awkward, so he learned to find other methods, so when she adjusted her slightly disordered clothes and hair mussed up by cuddling (not anything particularly naughty, she just had a fragile hairstyle not having been previously tested against hugs) she'd find little slips of paper concealed on her with the answers already written on them.

After she did so she'd always give him an impressed look or two after the testing was over.

Then he learned how to rig the seating arrangements so that Temari was sitting on the other side of him from Hinata, and that was best. For some strange reason Hinata's lack of self confidence would not let her believe that she was good enough for Naruto - thus why she'd never approached him before. And perversely she felt much better about the whole girlfriend issue if there was another double-X chromosome ally on her side, someone to take up any and all girlfriend duties Hinata herself might flub on.

She felt so sure of her own failure in most every department that she felt better about anything, particularly anything important like being a good girlfriend to her precious Naruto, if she could tag-team it. That way her fears could be allayed, thinking that if she failed there would be another to take over, and thus between them make sure of getting it done properly.

Yes, that's crazy. She'd never been anything less than everything Naruto had ever wanted, had ever IMAGINED wanting. But she was not the first girl to want something that didn't make sense or go crazy over insecurities.

The author himself has never ceased to be amazed over the amazing leaps of illogic that particularly insecure girls are prone to, nor the outrageous and farcical plans they would come up with to pursue them.

Still, while Hinata was whispering all this off in a corner in a desperate yet hushed conversation with Temari, Naruto was, perhaps unfairly, listening in with those amazingly useful fox ears, while she first confessed her fears and hopes for another girl to help her shoulder her girlfriend duties solidly.

Then Temari confessed in turn that, although she thought Hinata was crazy, she was at least glad for it, as Gaara had told her that she must suitably cater to his fellow demon container's romantic needs or he would kill her.

Who would have thought Gaara of being that crazy? Okay, he knew he was a demented lunatic but that had always been on a mass-murdering strain. This new twist came out of left field.

But... coming from a guy who'd carved the kanji for 'love' into his forehead...

Well, the answer to that, in Naruto's mind, was pretty simple. He could set his romantic needs very low, that way Hinata could outgrow her fears of not being up to meeting them, and Temari would not have to do anything she found terribly distasteful.

Yup! He was a kissing man from now on! With perhaps a hug or two, and that answer seemed to work best for them in what was an already bizarre arrangement.

Even better when he got Sasuke to sit ahead of him so they could throw spitballs in his hair during the final crunch minutes while Ibiki was really cranking down the pressure and the trio had already been kissing for forty minutes straight, with Naruto trading between the two dizzy females, made so by his increasingly expert ministrations.

Yes, he was getting to be that good of a kisser. Probably no man alive had had half so much practice, and he was a great learner.

And best of all, Sakura was so busy being upset during these antics that she never even thought to volunteer dropping out! And learning how to throw the spitballs without any of the examiners catching them was good ninja practice!

But even after all of this, his chakra control was only barely crawling along.

In the end, Naruto went to go ask the Hokage.

I I I

"Hey! Old man, I've uh... got a problem."

"Oh?" Sarutobi took his pipe out of his mouth. "What problem is it, Naruto?"

"I..." the boy sat down heavily, shaking his head and grabbing his own hair. "I've got no idea how to explain this!"

The Hokage leaned back, appraising him. Apparently it was serious. "Why don't you start at the beginning, Naruto?"

"That would be really hard to do," the boy admitted with a sigh.

Sarutobi was nodding. 'Serious AND complicated. Fun.' "Why don't you just try. You'd be surprised what you can describe if only you get started."

The boy sagged, listless, in his chair. "Well, I don't expect you'll believe me. What do I do if you don't?"

The Hokage leaned forward, lacing his hands together on his desk. "Why don't you try, and I'll do my best?"

The boy sighed before nodding. Given how sad and serious the blond was the Hokage was already certain that whatever it was, it was bad, however a large part of him had that parental hope that it was some childish nonsense that seems grave to a young mind, while being utterly inane to an adult one.

Still, he didn't hold out too much hope for that, as those were very rarely the case with Naruto, who had problems no one seemed to have resolutions for.

Still, it would be nice to have it be one of those for once.

However, Naruto's first words confirmed it wasn't. "Okay, first thing you've got to understand is that a time-space jutsu has gone massively wrong. I've been trapped in an endless time loop. Every day is the morning of the first test of the chunin exam. That was the same yesterday, and it will be the case tomorrow, too. You won't recall any of this, because you never do. No one ever does. But I have lived through this one day for years now."

Sarutobi's face grew grave. "That... is a very interesting problem, Naruto. Can you offer me any proof?"

The boy sighed, shaking his head, then looked guilty. "Maybe, but not yet. I've got to finish my explanation first."

The Hokage nodded patiently. "Then proceed."

Gulping, Naruto continued. "It's not always only one day. When I pass a phase of the chunin exam I am allowed to go on until the next one, but the moment I fail any part I get sent right back to the beginning."

Sarutobi stopped himself from smirking. 'So, that was the game, was it?' It had been a while since Naruto had tried to pull a prank on him, and he had to grant him points for originality, but really, the premise was transparent. He was angling for an easy promotion and an excuse to skip the exams.

Not a bad idea for a genin.

Well, best to see how this played out.

Sighing once more, the boy groaned on, face down, heavy with sorrow. The Hokage really had to give him points for the act, it was most convincing.

I I I

Author's Notes:

To those who are upset about the foxification, if it bothers you so much, please DON'T read my story anymore! I'd be happier, and you'd be happier, if you didn't.

If you think that's a power up you weren't reading what I was writing.

Just like putting tank armor on a car - it weighs so much that it breaks the suspension and blows out the tires and suddenly the one thing a car is good for, mobility, it doesn't HAVE anymore! Or better yet, pour a concrete bunker onto the outside of an airplane so it can't fly anymore.

He got more chakra, yes, but now he CAN'T USE IT!

How you'd like a few tons of cash in a currency no one takes anymore? If you can't spend it, it's meaningless. All it does is take up space you'd probably rather be using for other things.

Naruto lost all of his ninja skills, all of his abilities. Now how is that a power up?

Sheesh, if you can't figure out something so simple, I'd rather you didn't read this. So do us both a favor and don't!

To those who can't deal with the fox ears, recall you're talking to a guy who uses the daughter of Sailor Moon as his World of Warcraft character, in all of her uber-cute, pink-haired, bunny-eared glory!

If there is anything sweet, saccharine, disgustingly cute or tooth-rottingly adorable, I actively seek out those things and enjoy every minute of them!

But I'm being nice. I am restrained. I have NOT made the Sound Four into a sentai team with color coded costumes. Aka-whoever are NOT on a crusade to gather Heart Crystals, or transformed into a bad Voltron remake (well, except perhaps by Kishimoto). No one has shouted anything about the Power of Love or thrown roses anywhere (although that last might just change, as having thought of it, it almost becomes too much to resist).

Think, for a moment, about how bad it COULD be before you complain about what it is now. And the same goes for all of you who are opposed to every matchup under the sun - yes, there are those among you who actively hate each one possible, so whomever I choose some are going to be offended, so you can count on me not to care whatever match you champion.

And that all goes DOUBLE for those who love the broody bastard or his wanker of a teacher!


	15. Chapter 15

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifteen

by Lionheart

I I I

Ebisu had been right, drawing was a perfect method for meditating on the beauty of nature.

Naruto had almost forgotten about that suggestion. It had been so long since he'd seen the special jonin, as the teaching specialist only gave him advice he had already heard. And, since he couldn't adequately fake walking on walls, water or leaf floating, until he could do them up to Ebisu's standards he could forget about any other training from the man.

And, once he did, he could look forward to more focusing on the basic three ninja techniques.

So, the one teacher who'd probably taught him more than all of the others combined was presently unavailable to him.

That sucked.

It honestly surprised him how much he'd needed this relief from all of his ninja training and duties, although it shouldn't have. He knew that he had been having a great deal of stress trying to break through his present barricades and get back, even to the level he'd been at before, but until he'd had some amount of relief from that anxiety he hadn't realized how much it had been hurting or eating at him.

He didn't even have to draw well, just looking at a thing, examining it and so on allowed him to see it in ways he'd never thought of before. It was both a marvelous change and a desperately needed outlet, bringing relief so fast he could even forget sometimes what his worries were.

This habit was a lifesaver, and so he did it, and as he did it he accumulated skill and got rapidly better at it. There really was no substitute for practice in this thing, but the same rules applied to this as had with his blacksmithing, namely, he had infinite time to try everything out, get it right, explore it and he'd never run out of materials to work with as a drawing pad was always empty the next day, also meaning that he never hit that 'good enough' point.

It was a good counterpoint to a major frustration he was having.

So far he had been totally unable to convince the Hokage of the truth of what was going on. Even when he tried to less than fully explain the situation, telling him only parts, he'd either get frustrated out of getting no useful response, or bound to a table getting tested by Sarutobi and some of Konoha's best seal experts.

Still, it was not as though that latter case was entirely useless, as Naruto merely spent the time listening to their dialog, memorizing what he could of it, only to look up those words later.

It was providing a spotty and haphazard education on the nature of the art of sealing, but he'd gone far with even less complete starts. It got even better when he had the idea, and figured out how to manage, just walking in to the Hokage's office, grabbing a book seemingly at random, opening it also seemingly at random, and 'pretending' to study while he was actually pouting.

In truth, what he was doing was actually studying, but pretending to pout, and in the short amount of time that it took Sarutobi to pry him out of his shell to find out what was wrong, Naruto had had a few minutes to pick up some information out of those very high level books.

Too high level, as it turned out. You couldn't build a structure from the top down, and he needed more of a base than he already had, so he'd begged and pleaded a few times and finally found out about the existence of a shinobi library of sorts.

Really, he should have found out about it before. After all, he'd been to the special ANBU classrooms where they taught anatomy toward the aim of having better take-downs of target ninja, and it was all in that same building.

It wasn't all that much of a library, either, just a collection of teacher resources for the ANBU classes, and even so it had been carefully vetted to make sure that nothing above a certain security limit was in there to prevent theft or infiltration attempts from having too easy a target. And there were no real techniques in there for that reason.

But what it was far outweighed what it wasn't. And to Naruto it was a find even greater than coming upon Sasuke's disused scroll collection, because it was basically the ninja academy, only the next level up.

There they taught the basics of pressure points, stealth and infiltration beyond what the academy touched on, and, yes, the basics of the sealing arts, which was EXACTLY what Naruto needed for this situation. Devouring those, he was able to get a MUCH better understanding of the sealing scrolls and exploding tags he already theoretically knew how to use (although they were presently inaccessible to him by reasons of way too uncertain chakra control), but also learn some of the hows and whys and basic rules of the art as a whole rather than its individual techniques.

That gave him some of the grounding he'd needed to start to understand some of the higher level stuff the Hokage and his experts talked about when they began discussing his seal. Not enough, unfortunately, but something.

However, something they DID have was advanced chakra control theory, and a handful of exercises for training!

That was more priceless than gold to the otherwise frustrated young boy. It didn't come in the form of otherwise useful techniques like wall walking or the same for water, being more mysterious and esoteric like sitting under waterfalls and feeling your flows of energy spread out through the water, how the currents could dissipate them and carry them away, then trying to follow those threads as they vanished.

For an ordinary chunin or jonin, such an exercise would be hard. For a genin, impossible. But for Naruto he'd never done an easier chakra drill. Why? Well think on the scale! For an average chunin, allowing their chakra to flow out in the currents of the river was akin to dumping in a bottle of ink then watching the patterns it made as it got swirled away. For a typical jonin, they might have a bucket instead of a bottle of ink to use to do the same.

Naruto, to use that same analogy, was capable of dying the river black. He didn't want to do that, of course, as part of the point was to watch your chakra flows, learning some part of its nature as it got swirled away and dispersed in the natural flow of water, and you couldn't see any patterns if you turned the entire river into ink.

Nevertheless, he was perfectly capable of creating large, easy to read patterns and then sustaining those all day.

ANBU, as they trained to do this, performed the exercise a few times a week if they were really good and serious about their training. But not even the best did more than that as they'd risk serious chakra exhaustion. So they learned as best they could from a few times and called it good.

Naruto, who could not only turn the river black but keep it that way for hours on end, had nothing to fear about chakra exhaustion and could study that way all day every day. And he did so, for a time, gaining back loads of lost ground on his precious control, finally getting back to where he could use a few of the more tolerant and less control oriented techniques, which brought him back the ability to use his unique Transformation in all its various forms.

That was a godsend, as it enabled him to do so much, besides getting rid of the hated ears and tail. Although, as he did so he discovered something else. He'd never even tried to sustain any of his shapeshifts long term before, but that was exactly what he had to do if he was going to go all day long without sprouting fox ears or suffering other furry embarrassments.

Naruto wanted to hold the technique all day, so he'd not ever need to explain the changes, but that was almost the same for him as drinking way too much water and then avoiding going to the bathroom.

At first things seemed ok, then not so much, then the pressure built and built until it got released in spite of his best intentions.

Suddenly sprouting foxy accouterments during the middle of a written exam was even worse than walking in with them on! Particularly since the first few times it happened he'd had a guilty expression as they broke out, so he got to spend a few highly unpleasant sessions with Ibiki, who was also the head of Konoha's ANBU Interrogation Unit, about the extent of his foxiness and if the Kyubi was breaking out (and they never believed that it wasn't).

This was probably something extra chakra control could fix, but he set about pushing his mastery of the technique up a bit in hopes that could also help him prolong his tremendously useful changes.

Sadly, although the catalog of the ANBU teaching materials collection had a good five books on chakra control, all but two of them were checked out, and one was an old thing in a language Naruto did not know.

So, of course, he set about trying to learn it.

And that was not all that Naruto was finding to do. He was drawing all over town, everything he could see, always amazed at where he could find beauty, and becoming quite skilled at portraits, landscapes and object studies. Some things, like Hinata, he'd drawn so many times he no longer needed to even see her to put her face, in all of its various expressions, down on paper.

But this was also the time that the refinements he was able to make on his blacksmithy were growing so intricate and minor that he was having trouble sustaining his interest on the subject.

So, figuring that since one craft trade had been useful for a tremendous amount of diversion, he might as well try another, he took some of Kurenai's long ago lessons on impressing females requiring a better wardrobe to heart and began to take up tailoring.

He needed new clothes, and the villagers, on the whole, did not want to sell him any, charging him outrageous prices for ordinary articles, so he figured this was the best way around their reluctance.

He was thinking that, like his dingy apartment, he could turn his 'does not impress females' wardrobe into something far more worthy of their notice. And in a way he was lucky he'd made that choice, as it presented as much of a body of study material as blacksmithing did, so provided a great amount of relief and distraction from his ordinary ninja woes.

Although, not unlike metalworking, he could put some of those skills to use on creating ninja equipment for himself and, later on, his friends. Konoha had some good standard uniforms, but they were just that, standard. So long as you were making outfits yourself anyway there was no reason not to include cargo pockets exactly where and how you wanted them, hidden pockets for things an enemy might not know to search for, and get the comfort, fit and materials the way you liked them instead of going for off-the-rack garbage.

Having begun to make his own gear in other areas, Naruto had rapidly learned to prefer doing it that way, as he didn't have to 'settle' for anything, and could make it exactly the way he wanted it every time. Then should he learn that it needed reinforcement at the knees, or whatever, he could do it rather than protest uselessly to an uncaring clerk who sold everything generic.

Since having trained with Tenten, he figured he would be using a lot of scrolls after he got his abilities back, so he could include more places to carry those conveniently, and where he could more easily get at them, than the standard outfit that only had room for roughly ten or so.

It was like metalworking. Everything could be made exactly how he wanted it to precisely match his own unique needs, improving how much use he could easily get out of his equipment.

And, like with metalworking, there were useful side additions to that skill, like how to properly embroider or make lace, that were not necessarily central to the trade, but did have a ton of things that he could learn and so add to the volume of how much he could usefully distract himself by studying.

Lace patterns were like puzzles, too, in that some had fairly simple patterns with a small number of bobbins, around a dozen or so for medium complex designs, all the way up to specialized, highly complex, two-hundred bobbin patterns that were simply gorgeous, and breathtakingly rare, as so few had mastered the skill of how to do them, not to mention how time consuming they were.

Then there was knitting, which could be used to adapt just about any fiber into thread. So, if he wanted to hang around the Inuzuka clan kennel for a day, he could make himself a dog fur sweater while out in the forest.

That was another good aspect to sewing, it was portable. When he made things out of metal he'd needed a forge with loads of tools to do it in, but he could sew practically anything with tools he could hold in his lap. So he could pursue his knitting even while out in the Forest of Death.

Embroidery was like drawing, in that just about any pattern could be created. And that made it flexible, too. Unlike drawing, it had special techniques you had to master in order to be able to do this instead of that, but those merely presented a new body of material to learn, and thus a distraction from his misery at having pathetic ninja skills.

Although, he was no longer trailing nearly so badly behind in that department anymore. Having access to his own unique shapeshift technique had enabled him to go through the route of relearning his martial arts. So, while he was once more hitting that same upper limit again soon, at least he had the skills of a top rookie genin instead of a dead-last.

That was comforting. Not super, but comforting. And this time he had a wee bit more utility out of it, as his strength and speed were superior to before. Not enough to beat Kiba superior (he tried, and failed, to do so many times), but the 'this doesn't suck so much as it did anymore' superior.

He still lagged way behind the actual martial arts specialists, but he could do more damage than someone with only average body conditioning. That was helpful, as previously... well, he wasn't a dead last, as there were still people like Sakura out in the ninja world, but he had sucked pretty badly.

And, by sneaking any old scroll out of Sasuke's apartment, he could do the whole thing with meeting and training alongside Tenten, too! That quickly brought up his throwing weapon skills once again, despite his longer reach and changed body having thrown him off before.

So, having two departments in which he was no longer quite so sucky made him feel much less of a low-grade academy student, and at least more of a competent genin once more.

Not the chunin he felt he'd been, but still better than before.

Anyway, having access to his ability to shapeshift again gave him options that he didn't have recently, like the ability to follow through on some of the plans he'd made for the Great Girl Decode.

Still, it wasn't like that went fast, as even once he'd steered one of those conversations onto Sasuke, the fangirls would squeal, "Oh, he lost his family. He's been through so much suffering. He must be so tender!"

In a moment of carelessness, Sexy Naruto blurted out, "BAH! He wouldn't know tenderness if it bashed him upside the head."

All of the other girls glared at him/her.

Okay, more tact was called for.

I I I

Very early on Naruto had tried, not long after Ebisu had told him about how unique and strong his Transformation technique was, approaching Kakashi as his favored student and demanding training (Sasuke never asked). But all the lazy jonin would do would be to agree, and then say, "Use your Sharingan to copy this."

Which pretty much sucked, because without the Sharingan all Naruto could do was memorize the handseals, and that wasn't half of knowing how to actually perform it. He'd need more data than that to even invent his own form of it.

That was the reason why he didn't already have every ninja technique in Konoha, or at least the thousand or so Kakashi had copied.

However, now he was able to wear his sullen teammate's face once more, the trickster of Konoha had another idea on that regard that just might work.

So, he approached Kakashi while both looking and acting like the Uchiha and grumbled, "Teach me seals."

Kakashi looked at him a moment, then nodded and took him off to a teacher on that subject, one of the ANBU who'd first taught him.

Naruto wasn't able to hold up the shapeshift for very long, but even so the fragmentary lessons he began to pick up that way made a big difference in his understanding of that art.

And, to his most happy delight, it turned out to be one where chakra control was almost meaningless. Okay, the art required a great deal of precision and control to get it right, but those were demanded as part of the scribing down of the seals, choosing the correct ones, and selecting the right diagram for your purpose, the actual activation required only a surge of chakra, no more complicated in most cases than activating an explosive tag, which was something Naruto could do.

No, once he'd learned that much he was immediately back to using storage scrolls and explosive tags again, as he hadn't previously dared, not wanting to mess up space time any more than it already was, or potentially destroy Konoha with an overpowered tag.

Now that he didn't have that worry he could use them again, and more! This looked like an art he could have a great deal of fun with!

So, he began to learn it at an increased pace, pressing for more time with those seal teachers by really cranking down hard on the impulse to revert to his true face and recent foxy form, he began to experiment on his own in ways on how he might make it easier to sustain.

I I I

"Oy! Ino! Shikamaru! Wait up!"

"What do you want?" The team whose members he'd named turned around to face the boy, with Ino putting a hand on her hip to confront him and act as spokesperson.

"You've heard the news of the Sand and Sound teams, right?" Naruto didn't pause for confirmation, only stopping before them to take out a scroll and unseal a pair of tidy stacks of equipment. Holding one of something up to Ino, he told her, "Here, you're going to need this."

"Armor?" She gaped at it disbelievingly, then shook her head. "Sorry, Naruto but it's not my style. I'm not a close combat type."

"Exactly!" He shot her a huge grin. "That's exactly my point! You're NOT a close combat type! But we're ninja, right? So, the whole point is deception, right? So, if you show up to our Forest test today decked out in combat armor and with a couple of swords strapped on your back, people are going to THINK you are a combat type, right?"

Shikamaru blinked a couple of times, processing this idea. Grudgingly, he gave it approval. "By dressing this way, ninja from other villages are going to think our greatest weakness is our strength. So instead of attacking us directly in head-on fights, where Ino and I are at our worst, they will try other options. This could give us a much better chance at passing this test."

Naruto continued to grin widely. "Not just other villages. We are the youngest group of genins taking the test, and none of the older students know much about us. Mostly they don't care about younger kids enough to learn about our abilities. Here, put that on." He tossed a bundle of clothes to Choji, who unfolded the top item to find a robe patterned in an elaborate flame style.

"There are matching shirt and pants to go with it," Naruto told him.

Shikamaru was thinking, rubbing his chin. "So, Ino and I dress up as close combat experts, while Choji, who is our combat expert, dresses up as a fire technique specialist who is boasting about his abilities in his art. That way, if we are attacked, most ninja would avoid Ino and me, while rushing in to hit Choji, believing that he would be our weak point. How did you think of this?"

The entire team blinked at Naruto, who shrugged and grinned. "Like I said, the entire point of being a ninja is deception. You know I don't have any close friends. What did you think I did with all of my time? I spent it studying to learn how to do things. I just played the fool because I didn't care to give away my abilities. But now that it's a matter of life or death for us, I figured I could show you a few things to your advantage. And with this stuff, even if it doesn't fool anyone, there is still a much reduced chance of a stray kunai or senbon taking you out."

Shikamaru was nodding, it was a very sensible strategy. "I would like to play a game of shogi with you later."

Naruto's grin widened. "I look forward to it." Then he stood up. "Here, let me help you guys put this gear on, some of the joints and fasteners are a wee bit tricky."

"I've never worn anything like this before," Ino confessed.

"Don't worry. You'll find that it fits you like a glove. Here, you go slip into the undersuit, and after you have that on I'll show you how to don the rest of it. After I show you, I'll also leave you with a set of instructions for putting it on and taking it off so you don't have trouble camping tonight."

Meanwhile, not far away, another group of Konoha genin was being stopped by another clone of Naruto.

"Oy! Shino! Hinata-chan! Wait up!"

I I I

"Gaara, wait." Naruto calmly walked into the threat zone and held up a hand, so nonthreatening and unafraid that the demon container from Sand paused in the act, just before crushing Sasuke to death.

Naruto turned to face Sakura, who was trembling. "Sakura, Sasuke is in the grasp of Gaara's sand, which is unescapable and can crush stones, only you can save him now."

Giving a disbelieving glance to her blond teammate, the pink haired girl none the less sucked in her lower lip and nervously drew a kunai, looking over to the implacable face of the boy from Sand.

Naruto rolled his eyes and swatted the kunai out of her hands. "Not like that!" he scolded her. "You can't beat him in a fight, don't even try. In fact, Gaara, would you mind if I threw a kunai at your shoulder, just to show her?"

Taking the hostile, flat, unfriendly stare as a yes, Naruto drew his own and tossed it gently and underhand toward the demon of Sand. The expected shield stopped it cold, and Naruto nodded. "You see? His defenses are automatic, and nearly invulnerable. If you approached him with hostile intent he could grind you into a thin red paste without really trying. Gaara, would you mind bending that to ruin, just to show her you can?"

In seconds, without Gaara even having to move a muscle, the sands had twisted the kunai into an unrecognizable mass of metal.

Sakura's eyes were wide and she was trembling in fear, realizing now the extent of their danger, or some of it at any rate.

"As I said, Sasuke is already dead, unless you save him," Naruto told his female teammate, playing on an idea that making out with Temari had given him earlier, just to see if it worked.

"But how!" the kunoichi objected. "I can't fight that guy!"

"I never thought you could." Naruto returned. "I don't expect you to try. No, you are going to save Sasuke's life by paying for it in a way that Gaara may willingly take in return for letting him go."

She looked fearfully between him and the demon from Sand, nervously touching her chin with one hand. "But... I haven't any money on me."

The blond boy shook his head. "No, and I wouldn't expect him to take it, even if you did."

"Then what!" she demanded, getting upset at all these riddles.

"Demon containers need their lovin'," he told her in direct, no nonsense tones, acting on the suspicion that people often do for others what they'd most want to get themselves.

Gaara's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and the sand he'd been sending out to grasp those two paused in its forward creep.

"Think of it this way, only your love can save Sasuke now. But to save him you have to give up on him and give that love to Gaara instead. I imagine that can be a temporary thing, but don't expect more than you pay for. If you give the boy a nervous peck on one cheek I imagine he might let Sasuke go after having only pulverized his legs and arms into useless, mangled flesh, pulled out his eyes and crushed his balls into liquid - a maimed and useless cripple but not dead. A serious kiss on the lips might save Sasuke's legs. A complete make out session with hugs might be worth those plus his arms, while I imagine that if you really impress Gaara, you might actually be able to get Sasuke free unharmed. Don't hold back, though, if that is your aim. The best a half-hearted effort is going to get you is a blind future member of a soprano boy's choir."

Sakura stared at her teammate in shock, before nervously licking her lips and looking towards Gaara. She hesitatingly took a step forward, then turned back to Naruto, objecting, "But! It's my first kiss!"

Naruto sighed, shrugged, rolled his eyes and spread his hands. "Okay, look, I know those are valuable, but let me put it this way, would you trade that in return for Sasuke's life?"

Thinking about it only a second, Sakura nodded. Naruto put his arms behind his head but regarded her kindly. "If it helps, close your eyes and imagine it as Sasuke. Picturing it as someone I like helps me sometimes get over the initial awkwardness."

"When did you ever kiss?" Sakura shot back at him.

Naruto rather pointedly did not answer, just pointing a finger towards Gaara, as if to say she had other business she'd best be considering now.

At first sighing, then stiffening her resolve, Sakura nodded and marched off to do her duty for Sasuke and her village by smooching the enemy. Yes, if those infiltration agents could bear to do it, so could she!

Seeing Sakura approach him, Gaara turned to his sister, glaring at her. "Temari."

"Right." She rolled her eyes, careful he couldn't see it, and went over on her own to make out with the demon container for Konoha. As she thought of how good a kisser he was, though, the duty suddenly seemed much less terrible and she licked her lips in anticipation.

Both teams got directly to the tower without serious interruption. Gaara was more than capable of getting scrolls for each of them, and wasn't about to give up on Sakura's company, fumbling and hesitant though her makeout was.

She never did put any heat into her kisses, though, so the Sasuke she got back as they entered the tower doors was due for a change of career to that blind boy's choir Naruto had mentioned.

Sakura spent the rest of that week nurturing the grieving, maimed Uchiha, and Naruto spent it practicing his chakra control and hanging out with the Sand siblings, who, as he'd known before, were surprisingly good company.

Then the prelim match put him up against Gaara, and he had to bow out, as there was just no way he could beat him without access to more techniques than his presently miserable chakra control allowed him.

And getting crushed like a grape was a miserable way to end a day.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

You know, I love how this story is flowing. I've never missed a day that the submission software at this site hasn't cost me.

Thanks for all of your wonderful reviews. It never ceases to surprise me that you guys actually like this stuff.


	16. Chapter 16

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixteen

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto made an interesting discovery during his ongoing stealth and scout training by breaking into a shop that had sold him those miserable weapons.

The owner kept a second account book hidden away, one gloating over how much he had overcharged Naruto on his purchases, on how many instances. It read like a high school teacher's diary on how many of his students he'd molested, the guy knew he was doing wrong but had no intention of stopping as he was having way too much fun, although in this case it was hatred the man was fulfilling, not lust.

It was something of an eye-opener to the young lad, but, on reflection, not really unexpected. He'd known from what he'd observed before that the overcharging on poor quality equipment could not be accidental, to find the account book only confirmed that. Only, it DID surprise the young lad just by how much he'd been cheated.

No wonder the orphan's allowance, generous for most, had barely kept him in cup ramen! If the other stores had been doing price-gouging like this...

But then he thought back to those shopping trips with Ino, and learning to judge good deals and quality products. Yes, not only had the other stores been doing it, some of them had been much worse than this weapons dealer. He hadn't thought to connect those to his life before, but it was true, he could expect to pay several times what Ino did and they'd not give him goods a fraction of the quality she seemed to regard as normal.

Apparently, they not only got to hurt the demon brat by gouging him, they made a surprising amount of money at it. So while other kids bought candy or toys, good clothes, ate well and amused themselves, Naruto had always been scraping the edge of poverty, living with next to nothing.

That sounded like something that needed reversing.

Before, Naruto had been able to afford to renovate his apartment to palace-like levels using clone labor and borrowed money, getting high rate loans he'd never had to pay back as the resets always wiped them clean.

Now, well, he'd been robbed. It seemed only fair to return that favor.

I I I

A thin metal shim slid in under the window and unlocked the latch, then the ninja outside slipped in and eased the window back into its frame behind him.

Wearing a mask, yet ears twitching and tail swishing behind him, the boy danced carefully down the steps from the upper story balcony he'd gotten to on ninja wires, always keeping a careful eye out for ANBU wandering the rooftops, and slunk into the slumbering house in the dark of night.

It made for an interesting exercise, finding out where and how those shops stored their money, breaking into those places and removing only enough to cover what they'd first stolen from him. It involved a whole new set of skills to do it, too, as previously he'd had no need of safecracking or some of those other advanced burglary techniques.

Still, it was interesting, so he began to pursue it more.

This particular home was that of a grocer, a man who'd been too clever by half to have kept any incriminating records on how he'd committed robbery of a small orphan boy. Few of the merchants of Konoha had been so reckless.

However, it had been possible to reconstruct much of the story anyway. All Naruto had to do was learn a little basic accounting. He knew what shops he'd frequented, for how long, and what he'd gotten there, even for what prices. After that, it was just a minor exercise in math.

And by now he'd gotten good at math.

Counting the value of expired food as zero, then calculating all of his food budget spent at this guy's store, the guy owed him a significant amount of money. Add interest, because they always do on any debt owed to THEM, at the rates they'd have charged HIM, and that chunk of dough became almost painful.

Previously, Naruto had been the only one to hurt from this guy's theft. Now that was going to get reversed.

If only for one day.

I I I

One of Naruto's water element techniques was the Sticky Capture Field, that covered a medium to large area in a transparent, hard to detect, glue-like substance useful for restricting the movements of other ninja. Of course it was of limited utility against Orochimaru, but even then it did slow him down a touch and make him slightly easier to hit.

However, the sticky glue stuff was not what Naruto was thinking of right then. No, it was the other half of that technique, because a ninja could be trapped just as easily in his own sticky capture field as anyone else, so to prevent that they focused chakra to their feet, hovering above it so they could move without hindrance. This is what enabled them to attack those trapped inside of the field and what made it a useful combat technique instead of a mere delay or distraction.

But Naruto had never before mastered that part. It'd seemed a waste when he could always pelt the trapped ninja with a barrage of thrown weapons.

Only now he was causing himself to reexamine that position.

According to the one chakra book that he had from that ANBU library that he could presently read, direct chakra manipulation in all of its forms was a key and source for good chakra control, and the more exercises one could perform, and the more perfectly they could be pulled off, the better.

The book was thick on theory and very hard to read, making assumptions of the student's understanding and using very technical language, but it was, despite being thick as cold tar in some cases, being helpful to the boy, who could use all of the chakra control techniques ever developed and then some!

So, seeing as how Naruto knew the theory on how to perform the 'levitate my feet on pads of chakra so I don't quite touch the surface I'm walking on' part of the sticky capture field, and that was a pure chakra exercise, there was no reason for him to believe that it would be any less valuable for his control than the other three chakra exercises he'd already mastered, and which did not seem to be doing him much good just now.

So obviously he put that theory to the test, and got rewarded immediately by a small surge of improved control as he mastered that exercise, putting him back to the level he'd been at when he'd graduated the ninja academy, which was still pathetic, but no where near as crippled as he'd been, as it restored to him most of his basic techniques.

He dared not try a medical jutsu for fear of killing someone, and his illusions he'd learned since the academy sucked, too hazy and warped for anyone to believe. Also, his elemental techniques were beyond his grasp, wanting to fly out of control and do things sometimes opposite of what he'd intended.

But, even with all that out of his reach, he still had Body Switch and his unique form of Transformation, which brought with it Sexy and Harem. Plus, he could Body Flicker, and his Transformation no longer hurt so hard when he sustained it for very long.

So he was getting back to genin level on his techniques

That was when he discovered, during his ongoing study of the sealing arts (while disguised as Sasuke, a trick that his improved control and duration of transformations made far more profitable) about the existence of chakra limiters, put on prisoners so enemy ninja could not escape via techniques.

The most common ones seemed to be the simplest, a set of seals that could be built into a device and combined with a ninja's manacles that simply drained out their chakra.

And, well, when Naruto tried a set of those out on himself he simply burnt them out. They were never designed with anywhere near the capacity it would take to drain him significantly. They just didn't have the power.

On the other hand, an older, more obsolete design could help him. They were more complex than the simple drain ones, and slightly less effective on most ninja, so nobody ever used them anymore. But for Naruto's needs they were close to ideal.

These chakra limiters tried to prevent access to one's chakra, although they were not perfect, so prisoners with access to low power techniques could still bypass and escape them. Even highly refined mid-level techniques could be snuck past the reduced chakra flow, so those limiters had not been very successful in restraining prisoners.

For Naruto they were perfect, or nearly so.

From his study of the sealing arts he discovered how to adapt and play with the design until he could create a version that limited the flow on his own chakra enough to be able to use his higher level techniques safely once again - but there was a snag, it could only work during peaceful conditions. The chakra surge of him getting emotional, or his adrenaline pumping would burn them out and he'd lose his precious control once again.

So he could use his fighting techniques only so long as he wasn't fighting.

It was a setback, but not a critical one, as despite the loss he still wasn't any worse off than he was before creating the limiters, as far as combat was concerned. No, what they really did for him was optimize training opportunities.

Now, so long as he was wearing his limiters, his chakra control was back to where he could go ask for training from Ebisu and get that scroll again, which put him back in touch with Tenten more often, although really he could get that much more easily by breaking in to Sasuke's place to steal those scrolls all over again, just without messing up the place this time.

But he COULD be playing with those affinity developing techniques again, so our hero was back on track to mastering that scroll's materials and getting Ebisu to teach him something else, perhaps something more useful.

Although, he did have to admit, being able to use all of those things that having elemental affinities gave him was far from useless.

Also, Ebisu was far from the only teacher in town.

I I I

Naruto stood before Anko, grinning brightly.

Then she smirked, "Okay, kid, you've got my interest. Tell me what you know already. We'll see where we go from there."

He began to list them off. "My basic three are fully mastered, seal-less and almost traceless. Body Flicker likewise. I also know some camping ones. One for lighting fires, another to read by, a lightning one for charging batteries and a fire one for warming yourself in cold weather..."

"Do you know them all?" she interrupted, then smiled when he nodded.

"Ok, just call them the traveling ten. We all do." Anko instructed him with a careless shrug. "They're a bit dated, not everyone knows them anymore, but it used to be no genin would leave the town gates without some. I don't know why they don't teach them as much anymore, they're all still just as useful as they've always been. I can't think of how you'd be expected to go on any long range survival type missions without them. I'll admit, part of this stage of the test is to weed out those who don't know them. It's a bit unusual for anyone below jonin to know ALL ten. Most genin just learn the two easiest for them, like lightning ones for creating light to read by and charging batteries. The way most teams are set up that gives most of them six out of the ten, without counting the instructor, and as we go though chunin most pick up a few others for convenience. So, what elemental affinity have you got?"

Naruto blinked at her guilelessly. "All of them," he pronounced simply. "I did the leaf thing for each of them, drying, burning, crinkling and so on. And then when I moved on to the 'traveling ten' it got real easy."

It had taken him a couple of weeks to get the basic affinity for each element developed, which he didn't think was too big a deal, having no idea what a spectacular rate of progress that was.

It was nice to have that back.

Anko's jaw had dropped open, then she reformed herself into a very happy girl. 'Oh yes!' This kid was going to help her beat her old teacher senseless! It was almost too much to hope for, but she still asked, "Anything else?"

"Why yes," he grinned ferally. "I can use Earth Style Wall, Earth Flow River, Underground Move, Inner Decapitation, Mud Overturn, and that Stone Lodging Destruction that allows you to control earth and stone, only I find it more useful to shape the stuff to suit my needs rather than just causing rocks to fall on people. I have other ways of causing avalanches."

The special jonin perked up. That was an interesting list!

But Naruto wasn't finished. "Then my fire techniques are Fireball and Grand Fireball, Dragon Flame Projection, which I think it's a bit stupid to have three techniques that do nothing but let you breathe fire, at least they could have more variation, like that Phoenix Flower thing that lets you breathe out lots of smaller balls of flame, even hide shuriken and stuff in them. But I also know that technique, the Phoenix Flower one, I mean."

Before he'd even finished she'd begun to goggle. "That many? How did you even fail this test? I'd have though it would've been too easy for you! With techniques like yours, you would've been unstoppable compared to most of the teams in there!"

"And I was, too. But our teamwork stunk." The boy gave a shrug. "I tried, but couldn't stop my partners from racing off alone to face opponents they couldn't handle. They didn't want my help, overestimating their own abilities drastically. I tried to follow and offer help anyway, but I wasn't able to get to them in time, and they died, so my team failed."

Anko was nodding. That was not unusual, and the reason they had tests such as this one, to weed out the pampered students who didn't have any real idea what they were getting into, or to at least wake them up so they'd take their responsibilities seriously.

But the young boy took her nod as a signal to go on continuing his incomplete listing of his known techniques. "Then I've also got the Mist Waltz, where you exhale a cloud of flammable gas over a wide area that explodes on contact with flame. Only I've modified mine so that it looks like a simple Misty Shroud, used for fogging areas to grant concealment, that I also know, but I'm listing them out of order."

Anko's eyes were shining. Adaptation of a well known technique to disguise it as another? Especially an offensive one to make it look defensive? Gold! This kid was pure gold!

Yet he was still continuing, "I used the Waltz recently in conjunction with my last fire technique, the Dragon Web, the one that allows you to send out a burst of flame that travels along wires? I'd set up a trap where I sent fire along all of the tripwires and warning lines I'd spread around our campsite, after I'd first filled the area with flammable gas."

Orochimaru's former student began to cry tears of joy. Here he was! The perfect student! Not ONLY had he a vast technique arsenal for his age, but he used them imaginatively and combined them well! Oh! The things they could do together!

But what she hadn't realized was he'd been listing them off alphabetically by element, and he was only just getting started with lightning.

"Then I've got the Thunder Punch technique for charging fists or weapons with electricity, and actually I do that with my feet, knees and elbow strikes too. I've just recently gotten Lightning Whips down, and my Thunderlance is coming along nicely. I almost hit someone with it. Then I've got the Celestial Web, same thing as the Dragon Web only using lightning instead of fire. I'm working on another jutsu right now that should coat me in armor of lightning, which would be cool!"

Impulsively, Anko grabbed the kid's head and mashed his face into her bosom. She had a son! Boyfriend! Brother! Whatever you wanted to call it! Whatever he wanted to be! Train him? Heck! She'd gladly MARRY him! If this kid was this strong at twelve years old just think of what he'd be at fifteen, or TWENTY! Her old teacher was doomed! Did you hear her? DOOMED!

The special jonin broke out in mad, triumphal cackling, still crushing the kid's face into her underclad bosom, and giving him an eyeful in the bargain, and probably his first ever Close Encounter of the Mammary Kind, as the kid had been bottle fed as a youth.

"Oh! Boy, we are going to defeat Roachy-chan and make his life hell! Come here and give me a hug!"

She gave a long, joyful cackle. Still holding the kid's head to her chest, she whispered gleefully in his ear, "Tell me, how'd you like to know the Temporary Paralysis technique?"

A grin spread over Naruto's features and he returned the hug. "Love to! Let's get started!"

"Good!" she responded with equal vigor. "Because when we go after the old bastard he's going to use a lot of snakes, he always does, and there's a few things you ought to know that will help defeat them - like snakes are very vulnerable to illusions, generally, and that even extends to things like the Temporary Paralysis technique."

"Couldn't we just kill them?" he asked in wonder.

"If we did he'd just summon more. Better to incapacitate them, that way he's got a more difficult time replacing them."

"Teach me, oh mistress!" he cried out in wonder, and Anko smiled fondly as she rubbed the hair on his head.

I I I

The thing about his fights at the preliminaries so far was that Naruto was facing people he could not yet beat. He'd only picked up two patterns for reaching those tests. One had him facing Gaara, which was suicide, and the other put him up against Kiba, who deserved the chunin grade.

Yeah, Naruto's martial arts were pretty good for a rookie genin, but there were many veteran genin with commensurate skills out there who surpassed him, while Kiba's fighting ability was solidly chunin, as well as mixed in well with appropriate supporting ninjutsu techniques.

Since Naruto's new limiters only worked OUTSIDE of combat, that left him with very few options for trying to get through the preliminaries. Either he'd bow out facing Gaara, get defeated by facing Kiba with a small number of Shadow Clones, or pack the room so tightly with clones that he couldn't maneuver and Kiba and his dog would just drill through them all.

No, after having faced him a few times Naruto became convinced that Kiba really ought to pass on to the final stage of the test, because that guy fought in such a way that Konoha NEEDED him as a chunin!

The problem then became how to do it? Because so far Naruto needed to beat him in order to pass, and that was looking difficult enough on its own.

Then he had a bright idea.

Those preliminaries got fought between those teams that passed the trial of the forest. The answer, then, seemed to be, to control who got scrolls and actually got out of the forest.

The Sound team, for example, did not need to get through. They met them early on during those Orochimaru days, and if Naruto could kill one then that team could not go on to qualify no matter how many scrolls they claimed. And that would change the preliminary matchups, mixing them up and altering who he was sent up against.

That way, perhaps both Kiba and him could pass to go on to become chunin.

Come to think of it, Naruto's team also ran into that team from Rain more than once. There was that scout that ran into them practically right out of the gate when they entered the forest, then they'd had to beat them again once they started being led by Kabuto to the tower.

So, take out the scout early and see what happened.

After beating the tar out of that guy and throwing him outside of the testing grounds so he, and therefore his team, would be automatically disqualified, Naruto began to take apart the guy's breath mask.

It was an interesting design. Probably the most fascinating part was how they'd gotten the flow rates high enough so that the air passage did not feel constricted in spite of heavy exercise like combat. And, although he couldn't copy it yet, Naruto didn't feel any part of it was beyond him.

It also began to give him ideas. Should he, for example, work this into the helmets of the armor he was making for himself and certain select other Konoha ninja, they then could do things like pass harmlessly through areas of poison gas or other subtle destructive techniques.

In fact, if they could learn to use those themselves, that could be an added advantage.

Any technique you could use on the area you stood in and not be harmed by gave you a great advantage against most of the close combat fighters. So it was probably a good idea to go ahead and do this.

Smiling brightly, Naruto put away the mask, already resolving to research those parts he couldn't immediately identify so that he could later make his own copies, perhaps even improve on it.

Hmm, so long as he was fiddling with the helmet maybe he could also add a range finder. He'd seen some of the other ninja using those. It would be worth the research to find out. Maybe even add a radio...

I I I

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked of her blond teammate, currently sitting in a pile of garbage where they were supposed to be meeting up for the Forest of Death in a few minutes.

"I'm putting on my armor," he told her quite calmly, attaching certain plates in order to his body.

Sakura was taken aback. Stunned, she whispered, "I didn't know you had armor."

Naruto sighed. This conversation was the reason why he hadn't worn it to this test before. The frank disbelief Sakura, as well as Sasuke, had when he displayed any useful equipment or abilities stung him every time. So it was in tired, long-suffering tones that he answered her.

"Face it, Haruno. You don't know much of anything about me. You know only my academy grades, that I wear orange, and I used to ask you out. That's it. You've never wanted to know any more."

Trying to pretend that he wasn't right, and that facing this truth didn't hurt, she blurted out, "Why didn't you wear it before?"

He snorted. "For D-rank missions? Oh, it would be so useful for painting fences. For that matter why don't I clank around a bit while chasing a cat? I'm sure the extra noise wouldn't warn it off. And as far as that mission to Wave, well, it wasn't ready. I'd been so certain we were going to be stuck in more D-rank missions for a time that I'd taken it apart to redo the joints. So I didn't have it on the one mission I could've really used it."

Sakura stood there several moments, blinking and quite confused.

Then Sasuke came up, and her crush snorted. "Layering yourself in tinfoil isn't going to save you, dope."

"No," Naruto stood up, helmet under one arm, the rest of his armor already on. "But pulling that stick out of your ass might help your attitude."

The Uchiha glared hard in return, while Naruto sported an impudent grin as he lifted his helmet to put it on. Annoyed by what he perceived as the dope's arrogance, the Uchiha threw a right hook to take that smile off his face.

Naruto blocked that with a kunai, tearing open a long gash in Sasuke's arm. Almost a stranger to pain (no one had ever dared to hit him before) Sasuke went down howling as he clutched his wounded arm.

Bawling like a big baby, Sasuke got their group thrown out of the test.

Naruto sighed and rolled his eyes.

He was about to turn away to go do some more practice when he saw Kakashi standing there, looking almost angry enough to try and kill him again.

"What?" he snapped at his titular teacher before the jonin could get started. "We're ninja! That bastard should know better than to initiate a combat situation unless he wants actual COMBAT!"

Kakashi began charging up a Thousand Birds technique. Speaking quietly, he said, "Ninja who do not care for their teammates are less than trash."

"And teachers who DO NOT TEACH are worse than that!" Naruto shouted back before storming off, not even bothering to acknowledge Kakashi's build up to attack.

The jonin let his assassination technique peter out. The attempt to bluff had failed. He was sure he could've gotten a greater reaction than that! The boy had seen him use that killing technique before, why hadn't it intimidated him?

He sighed, making a note to throw Naruto off the team. If he was going to be like this he wouldn't be useful for Sasuke's progress any more.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

I do not like Kakashi. I'm sure that comes as a great shock to you. From things I am hearing, he mellows out and has useful moments post-time-skip, but his behavior in all of the episodes I've seen places him as pure garbage.

No, worse than that, as by his own admission ninja who do not care about their teammates are less than garbage, and the only one on his team he's shown any caring about is the Uchiha, whom he panders to like a favorite son.

So, no. If you are expecting a glowing treatment of him you've come to the wrong fic. But I'm sure you're already aware of that.


	17. Chapter 17

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventeen

by Lionheart

I I I

Sasuke's face was useful for many things, playing darts, molding mud patties, practicing basic medical techniques that you wouldn't want to get wrong on someplace important, and not the least of which was breaking up Naruto's boredom by pretending to be him to go off and learn things. But that was not all that the Uchiha's appearance could be used for. No, there were seemingly limitless uses for the bastard's fame and glory.

Like, for example, improving Naruto's medical knowledge.

Now, you might ask, how could that be? Perfect chakra control was required to be a medical ninja, correct? And you'd be right to wonder. But, going up as Sasuke on a lark to the hospital to ask, he found many willing instructors who taught him less precise, less powerful medical techniques than Kabuto and his dad had shown him, but that could be mastered by those with significantly less than perfect control.

After all, people with perfect control were rather rare, and didn't always choose medicine as their specialty; and, as a ninja village, they needed more medical professionals than that. However, not every injury or bruise was so bad that it needed the very best of care. So, ergo, there were less powerful special powers taught to those who had less control, and thus, by filling up some of their needed medical professional numbers with those who had only moderate ability, they could free up the time and energy of the truly gifted for the more serious cases.

Funny how Kabuto had never thought to mention that. But not every nurse or midwife had to have absolute perfect chakra control. Some had only slightly better than average, while others had good.

Naruto, while he was wearing his seals, fell between those for the moment.

Learning to be one of those moderately skilled professionals for now, until he had the control to be a gifted one, also had other benefits in that he got to play pranks on Sasuke's fangirls and blow off some steam at the Uchiha at the same time.

"You wanted to see me, Sasuke?" Sakura appeared at the door to the Uchiha's apartment bearing a sprig of flowers and a guest gift, unaware that the real Uchiha was off training on the other side of the village, and would be absent all day.

Naruto/Sasuke nodded, stepping back broodily from the portal to allow her in. Sakura entered with ill-concealed delight, putting her flowers into a vase and her gift on a corner of his table. Seeing a book open on the table, she picked it up and flipped it around to read its cover. "Oh! Are you studying medicine, Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn," Naruto/Sasuke grunted.

"How marvelous!" Sakura skipped into the air in glee, before she brightly bent over with eyes alight and shining, her hands clasped behind her to ask, expecting to be denied, "Is there any way I can help?"

Naruto/Sasuke nodded grumpily. "Take off your clothes."

Her eyes went round and a sudden blush covered her face.

He turned to gaze sulkily out the window, as the real Sasuke might have done, and grunted, "Page ninety-three."

Obediently flipping through the textbook to the page indicated, and stealing nervous glances at him all the time, Sakura saw the steps outlined for how to perform a proper medical exam, and a suggested homework assignment at the conclusion of that chapter saying there was no substitute for doing one on a live patient, and recommended performing several on different subjects.

Biting her lip, she understood what he meant. Considering that for a moment, she shyly shrugged and answered, "Alright, Sasuke, if that's what you want I'll be glad to help."

Turning back around to face her Naruto/Sasuke nodded grimly, and she began, very timidly and shyly, to unbutton the top buttons on her dress.

I I I

"You wanted to see me, Sasuke?" Ino appeared at the door to the Uchiha's apartment bearing a sprig of flowers and a guest gift.

Only twenty-eight more fangirls to go.

A large part of Naruto felt guilty, but he really needed the experience, as there truly was no substitute for having actually done the exams. He'd read as much as he could until reading didn't improve his skills any more.

He needed warm bodies to study if he was going to learn more, and Naruto wasn't a part of the official Konoha medical establishment to tap into how they'd arranged to do this.

He'd chosen Sasuke's fangirls because this was technically an injury to them, invading their privacy and so on, but they were also technically followers of his enemy - the Uchiha, and so open to injury by the rules of war.

A part of him wanted to turn this into a prank, so that by dropping specific, detailed references to how the girls looked naked he could be embarrassing them forever. However, a large part of him was too embarrassed to, wanting to learn what he had to learn and then never mention this again, to anyone, regardless of the reset.

But, both sides had to agree he got some very valuable help on his medical training out of this bit of trickery, pushing him past a threshold from pure academic knowhow to usable expertise that was a vital part of making an actual medic out of him - a path on which he could save lives.

Hinata, Anko and, surprisingly, both Tenten and Temari would aid his studies without the need for deception.

I I I

Naruto felt ugly and soiled over having deceived those girls. He told himself it was all in a good cause, until he realized that was probably what Jiraiya told himself about 'gathering research' for his smutty books.

So he resolved to do something to make it up to them, even if they never knew that he'd done that to them in the first place.

Starting from that vague idea, he went off to his next sewing lesson, only to connect the two. Girls were always complaining about not having enough outfits! He was GOOD at making clothes by then! So, he could make at least a partial restitution by making them some good clothing.

Most of Sasuke's fanclub were not kunoichi, as most of those that tried had failed their genin tests. So the typical combat wear he was working on would not suit them.

So, acting on his spy training, he first found out what clothes they wanted, then began to work on that. Still, it didn't seem enough to give them copies of outfits they already could have bought, so using that as his starting point he began to design new stuff.

Naruto played around and experimented with the fashions until he had such a discerning eye for color, cut and style that people could easily question his masculinity. But he didn't stop until he could get each of those girls he'd wronged squealing with delight as they opened his anonymous packages.

But he didn't stop there.

He gave them whole collections of outfits, not just uniforms even for the kunoichi. They got everything from the skin up: socks, panties, brassieres, blouses/tops, skirts, and various accessories. Summer dresses, day wear, evening wear, practical outfits, work out clothes, swim wear and formal wear all got included. He learned to make hats, shoes and purses to go with them, adding on ornamental pins with his metal working skills, along with rings, bells, buckles, broaches and other jewelry.

As an unintended side effect by the time he was no more than halfway done he was far more intimately acquainted with those girls' bodies than even the medical exams had done for him, as a tremendous number of fittings and so on had been required to get even a fraction as close as he'd wanted to.

Almost amusingly, at the point where he'd felt he'd needed fittings they were not very hard to get. All he had to do was show them some of the outfits he had already prepared and wave a tape measure and he could get any one of them gleefully shedding her clothes in order to be properly fitted for new ones.

To most girls, there are special exceptions to the modesty rules, and both doctors and really good tailors fall among them.

But it wasn't entirely without its awkward moments.

"Why are you doing this, Naruto?" Sakura had asked him, as he was tugging on the fabric covering her panty clad bottom, nose mere inches away as he checked that pair for a proper fit. It had to smoothly follow the line of her thigh just so, before it could be perfect. "It's a wonderful outfit, but..." she looked at the gorgeous dress on the rack before her, and the team of clones making stitches behind it, producing the next dress.

There were stars in her eyes over the outfits she was getting. He showed a preference for ribbons and lace when he could get away with using them, and those laces were simply unbelievable! She'd never HEARD of some of those patterns before! The village shops didn't carry anything half so gorgeous! Then the embroidery was so delicate and lovely, half of it you didn't even know it was there until the light caught it just a certain way, and then the patterns were exquisite!

Hinata had an outfit that made you think butterflies were constantly flitting all over it, as the light caught them appearing and vanishing again and again.

The village shops didn't sell any embroidered clothes, claiming there was no market willing to pay prices worth the labor. But all of the girls she knew would simply die for a good piece of it, and this was better than most of them had ever dared to dream of!

Even the fabrics were to die for! In fact, she could see some clones in the back making them from scratch! Who would've thought he was so versatile?

Still, she was also worried and concerned over Naruto's behavior. When he'd first asked she was sure this had somehow been a ruse to get her on a date, but that had all been blown away when she'd seen how good a tailor he was.

Now she had to know why.

Naruto, perceiving this, made a chalk mark on the pair she was wearing about a minor alteration that could be made to improve them, before answering, "Really? I want to be a medic, but the Konoha hospital won't train me. So I've got to get first hand knowledge of bodies another way. I didn't want to rob the morgue or peep on bath houses, so I figured I'd take up tailoring."

"Oh." She wondered about that, not knowing if he was joking or not.

Incidentally, after giving a few outfits away to Sasuke's fangirls he'd felt guilty not preparing wardrobes for those girls who'd liked him enough to help him without any deception, so he'd also prepared clothes for Hinata and the others as well - with the interesting side effect that, after having woken up Hinata with a gift of clothes, she'd gone out wearing them, and Kurenai had met them after the test, and liked them so much that he'd finally gotten a tape measure on the woman.

In fact, she'd insisted, taking him aside and demanding that she be allowed to take off her clothes to be measured by him as part of his hopes for a future relationship with Hinata, since she was her teacher.

Then the grocer's wife had tried to demand the same thing, promising him a discount on all future purchases if she could get an outfit from him.

It boggled Naruto's mind how much clothes mattered to women.

One interesting observation was that while he might be hated by the village in general, even the women who'd always despised him loved his outfits, and he got requests for fittings from women who'd practically spit on him before.

It was odd how things worked that way.

But no, Naruto had no interest in fitting any of them, sticking to those he felt he owed, designing ever larger and ever better wardrobes for the sleek, petite, athletic a, b, and *maybe* c-cup girls he knew, no matter how many others clamored for the tailor's attentions.

And Hinata-chan just looked stunning in that off-the-shoulder ball gown he'd made for her, too!

"Hmmm, you really know how to pamper a girl," Ino purred as she was being fitted for a new swimsuit, feeling very fond of the care he was taking over ever tiny detail. "Too bad you don't also do a girl's hair. If you could also do a facial and manicure that would be perfect."

"Oh?" Naruto looked up from where he'd been getting the fabric to settle on her breasts just so, to where it lifted and enhanced without seeming to, while remaining comfortable to wear.

Getting the colors right on her swimwear so it showed her off to best effect, both wet and dry, and remained modest when wet, had been a challenge. It's not that her colors were hard, blondes were easy to dress as far as colors went, seeing as so many suited them. Hinata-chan had been a far greater challenge to pick colors for. No, the problem had been most of the best dyes for the shades that suited her best either were not available in Konoha, or tended to change too much when moist. So he'd had to learn how to mix his own, and with the new pallet available, he'd been having to redo most of her wardrobe to take advantage of the new set of pigments.

Ino was taking advantage of those fittings to get chatty. "Yah, about the only thing that could make your full service tailoring any better was if you also ran a spa while you did it."

"Hmm," Naruto nodded, going back to checking out the drape over her breasts. "So, what would that involve?"

I I I

Ino groaned in pleasure as one Naruto massaged her back while another ran brushes with scented oils through her hair, as a third measured her foot for the shoes she was to be wearing, thoughts of seducing the young tailor going through her mind.

Sasuke? Sasuke who? Who was he and what did he matter? The best catch in all of Konoha was making her outfits right now!

"Naruto," she murmured out, awash in pleasure. "Will you marry me?"

I I I

"Naruto," Tenten/Hinata/Temari/Anko/several other girls each in their turn murmured out, awash in pleasure. "Will you marry me?"

The boy nervously sweatdropped.

I I I

"No, kid, you shouldn't marry a girl who proposed just because you gave her a nice meal, a spa trip, and a few outfits," Anko instructed the lad, plainly ignorant that she was one of those herself. "Any girl who'd propose just because you overloaded her senses in pleasure wouldn't make you a very good wife. She'd probably explode into fat anyway. Why do you ask?"

"Because they're ALL like that!" the boy confessed, stressed out of his mind. "I can't even brush their hair anymore without them offering to let me DO things to them!"

What he was ignoring was that he only ever offered to brush their hair unless it was during one of those fitting sessions where they'd just gotten a massage, there was soft music playing in the background, scented candles were burning and new clothing was dangling before their eyes.

Naruto had been experimenting around with his days for some time now, and getting more training time from Anko was one of his priorities.

So far, his usual schedule worked out to waking up, going direct to the Uchiha estate to 'look for Sasuke', getting arrested and taken before the Hokage, who gave him those properties after a little prompting. That maximized his usage of those resources those days he was studying things there. Then he went and popped by Hinata's place, woke her up and after smuggling her out of her house had breakfast with her before walking to the center together.

Some of his clones would be engaging Temari or Tenten in conversation as those groups left to go to the center. Then they all met, took the test, passed with flying colors, and went off to study whatever activity had engaged his interest of late.

Lately he was trying to maximize his time with Anko, as she was more than willing to teach him things.

That Temporary Paralysis was the first actual combat technique anyone had taught him, ever. But that was only the first. She seemed to take delight in showing him how to be a more powerful ninja, and he was ecstatic to learn!

Although, he was a bit hesitant to tell her everything he could do. The one time he had told her about his S-ranked Transformation she had grabbed him in a hug, put his hand on one of her... parts, and whispered hotly in his ear, "How'd you like to be a daddy?"

He'd nearly died from the nosebleed.

Then he'd go on to meet his team at the forest. Tenten would've spread news of the test, so Sasuke would go face Gaara, and Naruto would prompt Sakura to save his life (but she would NOT manage to preserve his eyes or balls - still a never ending source of humor), and then it would be off to the tower, where Naruto could hang out a whole extra week with Anko.

Strangely Orochimaru never showed up to face them when Gaara was there, and didn't seem interested in marking a blind, gelded Sasuke after that.

I I I

Everyone met before the Forest of Death in one large group while Anko, who had not yet met Naruto on this reset, explained the rules.

Naruto made fun of the seriousness of her warning, as he had the first time, and she threw a kunai at him to cut his cheek, as per usual. Then, when she came up to retrieve it and whisper threats in his ear, as part of his efforts to get her as an instructor earlier he twisted about in her grasp and started to whisper to her instead.

After listening for a few moments to his appeal for help training so he could defeat Orochimaru, and his list of techniques he could use to do so, she pondered for a second. Then he heard a 'Pop' and felt something weird while hearing some odd squeaking.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, not able to see.

Anko, putting the cap back on her marker, looked at him. "Oh? Just writing 'Property of Anko Mitarashi' on your butt. Don't die in there, okay kiddo?"

The boy sighed, drooping his head and shoulders. "Better add, 'and Hinata Hyuga' to that, too. She's my official girlfriend."

"And Temari!" The female out of the Sand Siblings cupped her hands to yell across the lawn. Oh yeah, this was one of those resets where she'd sat with him and had that discussion with Hinata after the test.

Resigned, Naruto gave a nod of his head, accepting that too.

Giggling, Tenten added her own shout. "Don't forget Tenten, too! I had dibs before the Sand chick did."

Sakura was goggling at her despised teammate who was suddenly so popular with girls, while Sasuke ignored it all as an affront to his dignity.

"Wait! This is Naruto! He..." Ino's protest died off thoughtfully. "He must be the one who gave us those outfits! Wasn't he? That's why you're doing this! Isn't it?"

Seeing Naruto's shy, resigned nod, Ino perked up. "Wow! Um, is there any way I can get my name on that list?"

Several of the kunoichi perked up and became interested.

Sticking out her tongue from the side of her mouth, Anko pulled the cap off of her marker again and bent over to do some more scribbling. Once she was done, she stood up to announce, "We can discuss sharing terms later, if any of you girls live. For now, on with the test!"

I I I

"Okay, kid," Anko told him one day as they were out eating dango together. "You've got the Temporary Paralysis good enough, you can master it on your own from here. Next we're going to be working on the Poison Mist technique."

"Yes!" Naruto cheered, pumping a fist. That was something that could be REALLY useful to him, ever since he'd gotten those breath masks copied.

The woman smiled at his enthusiasm. 'Yes, the perfect student indeed'. But then she frowned. "Kid, you've said you've got the basic three and traveling ten down, what about your essential eight?"

"My what?" he asked her.

She rolled her eyes, taking her elbows off the counter to lean back, putting those same elbows on the back of her chair, which spread her coat a little wider. "The Essential Eight ninja skills, kiddo. Don't tell me you've never heard of them..." looking at his expression, she rolled her eyes. "Okay, kid, here's the deal: experts in any profession use shorthand names to refer to their most commonly referenced items, skills, codes and so on. I know you know some of these. You should, the academy is supposed to teach them to every graduate, although some excel better than others. I want to know how are you at Body Flicker, Dispel, Escape, Exam Cheating, Explosive Tag use, Stealth, Silent Killing and Wire use. Those are the Essential Eight."

"Body Flicker I know almost as well as my basic three," Naruto scratched his cheek. "And I can make my own explosive tags. I can sneak around pretty good, and I'm an expert on wires. But the others?" He shook his head. "I don't know what some of those are."

Anko groaned and touched her forehead. She loved the kid, she really did, but some of those glaring holes in his education! "Okay, squirt, here's a rundown: Dispel is an essential ability for all ninja, if you ever get caught in an illusion, and KNOW you're caught in an illusion (which is the tricky part) you can break out by using Dispel - that is if you even know the technique. Exam Cheating is the fundamental basics of all of the intrusion or spying arts to follow, a first step down the road to information gathering. Are you with me so far?"

Naruto nodded.

Anko licked her lips, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a length of cord. "We can get to the others later. For now we'll deal with Escaping. You come here and let Auntie Anko tie you up."

He swallowed heavily.

Pondering, she reconsidered. "No, let's not do this here. C'mon, let's go find someplace more... private."

She licked her lips again and the boy sweated.

I I I

"And you thought you knew explosive tags well," Anko chided him, looking on proudly as the massive fireball blew up.

Naruto was also enthralled by the explosion. "Wow! I had NO IDEA it was possible to set them to go off on so many conditions!"

As the walls of one of Konoha's public restrooms rained down on the street around him, Anko drew the boy close to her and muttered, "Yah. They can be set to go off on any number of triggers, you've just got to know how."

"But! But..!" Naruto stuttered. "To set them to go off on WANKING!"

Kakashi stumbled, burnt and injured, out of the debris.

A fire was still burning on the pages of his orange covered book.

I I I

"To practice your Exam Cheating without my going through all of the trouble to prepare a written test, I've devised this substitute." Anko told him while locking the door of her apartment closed behind her.

She walked in to join him at her dining room table and put a deck of cards down in the center of it.

"This game is called Poker," Anko told him. "And to make things more interesting we'll be playing the variant called Strip Poker. It's really very simple. On the board over there you'll see a list of all potential hands. You'll want to memorize it, because it'll be gone tomorrow. The person with the best hand wins, while the loser must take off a piece of clothing. The object of this exercise is to cheat, using ninja skills to find out what the other person has so you can either fold, that is drop out without playing that round, or cheat to improve what you've got in your hand. With me so far?"

I I I

"Okay, new rule." Anko, wearing nothing but a bed sheet, told him. Even her headband was gone, all stuck in a pile before Naruto. "Remind me later to take you out to a casino so you can clear out the place. But this is not about luck, or not what you should be learning, anyway. From now on, you can't win unless you write down the cards I've got in my hand before the deal is finished. Recall, this is all about spying skills. That's what we're working on for you."

I I I

Naruto, sitting naked at the table, scooted closer to it so his privates were less visible and announced, "Call."

"WHAT?" he cried out when she laid down her cards. "That wasn't what I dealt you!"

"Of course not," she informed him with a smug grin, back to wearing all of her usual clothes, which wasn't much. Of course she'd not loaned the kid a bed sheet to wear. "This is about spying, kiddo. You've got to stick with it so you don't get caught up by changing information."

"You cheated!" He realized, blood draining from his face.

Her reply was still smug as she laid her chin on her hand. "Of course. We're ninja, kiddo. Cheating is part of the rules, for us at any rate. You've got to expect it. Why do you think 'Exam Cheating' is part of our Essential Eight? Now come on, dance for me!"

He smiled wanly. "Can I offer you a massage instead?"

I I I

"Come back here and give me BABIES!" Anko's voice shouted after the boy as he pelted out of her apartment. Between one step and the next the nude boy shapeshifted into a clothed female form and kept on running.

"Okay!" Naruto told him/herself, still running. "Never, EVER give her a massage after an evening of strip poker!"

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Well, that was fun. I enjoyed it, and I hope you did too.

Anko is a fun character to play with.


	18. Chapter 18

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Eighteen

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto quickly learned that he could not train a whole week under Anko without her trying to jump his bones. It's not that he wasn't flattered, but the twelve year old wasn't ready for any of that yet, so decided he needed to seek other options for his training.

It's not that he'd be avoiding Anko, he just couldn't take her advances all of the time. So, to minimize his stress, he began to branch out again.

Also, he was backing off of the costumes, at least for now. He'd continue to work on ideas as time permitted, but showing them off created too many problems for him.

Like, the Lord of Fire Country's wife pulling rank and getting him pulled out of the chunin exams so she could have a fitting done. Of course, while it started with her, it quickly became both her, and her daughters, and her mother, and her sisters, sisters-in-law, cousins, nieces, and Naruto had been facing so many demands for new clothes, all in different styles than the village girls and kunoichi wanted, that he wasn't quite willing to go there again soon.

Gold and silver thread? He'd never even HEARD of such a thing before they'd begun demanding it for their outfits! None of the tailoring books he'd read had ever mentioned the subject. It was just too extravagant.

He was going to have to discover the secrets to a whole new level of tailoring if he was going to continue to show off his creations, as it became clear to him that what nobles want, they can generally take. That is, if the Hokage pulling him out of the chunin exam to create clothes for the Fire Lord's family was a reliable indication.

And some of those women were OLD! YUCK! I mean, the Fire Lord's wife was almost forty! And her mother? BRRR! Then there was the long list of aunts and older cousins, and... the list of grandmothers was LONG!

No, one thing he did not know beforehand, and could happily have lived his life without ever learning, was what wrinkled on older women. No, call him a happy man he who died at twenty. Maybe he should declare that he wasn't able to create lingerie? PRETEND he didn't do underwear so those nobles wouldn't ask? He didn't think he could bear to face another wrinkled breast or bottom.

Naruto went off to take a bath and wash himself. Brrr!

After that, maybe he'd start learning how to work with leather. That had to be a more manly profession than all of this lace, right?

Hmm, maybe not this moment, however, as that talk among those nobles asking for feathers gave him a few ideas. He'd never thought of using those before, but if you got the right ones and used them just so, they could really add to a new level of detail to certain effects...

And that could require more fittings to make sure they didn't spoil the lines and still looked right. Hmm...

I I I

Learning to work leather was like most of the other trades Naruto had pursued. He would first find a book to read what he could, that would make it easier to find a teacher. He'd usually have to shapeshift, either into a son or other relative or into a complete stranger, but he always had to be someone who wasn't the Demon Container.

As far as that goes, he'd developed a pattern of staying around just as long as he could before heading off to the bathroom, or to get a drink of water, or a breath of fresh air, any excuse to be alone for a moment so he could release the shapeshift and relax for a minute before resuming it again. It was far from perfect, and really hellaciously awkward at times, but it worked well enough to suit his needs for the present.

However, as he used his remarkable intellect to further perfect his mastery of the technique he was going increasingly long between those breaks. It was only a matter of time before he could go all day, he felt, and that would be welcome.

The next goal would be to sleep all night long without releasing the shift, as it had caused a number of awkward moments during camping out in the Forest of Death when his companions came in to his tent to wake him for his turn at watch, or whatever, and there he was wearing his foxy accessories.

No, they'd lost the test more than a few times over those blowups, and that was AFTER he'd started carrying in a one man tent and insisting on sleeping alone in it, with excuses he knew from trial and error they'd believe.

His current one was that he didn't want to have to watch them make out, which Sakura accepted without question, making googly-eyes at the Uchiha, while Sasuke just grunted. It wasn't going to happen, but between Sakura's hopefulness and Sasuke's noncommittal grunt, they'd accepted his excuse.

Then he'd had to leave a string tied to his toe trailing out the door of the tent so they could wake him for his watch turn or whatever by pulling on it. The excuse there was that he liked to sleep with traps protecting his tent, and no, he wasn't going to go into any specifics.

Waking up to his toe being tugged on was always better than the screaming that came when Sakura came in on him to find his furry bits out, and it gave him a moment to sit up, rub his eyes, and put them away again before going out to meet whatever duties he had to do.

It was complicated, but then nothing about his situation wasn't.

But back to the leatherworking. Naruto had found the best way of dealing with any trade skill was to go take whatever lesson he could get, then later go off by himself and practice that as long as he could. He usually made a few hundred clones to help him explore possibilities, like why this stitch had to be this way instead of that way, how it worked both ways, what happened if he reversed one of the pieces of cloth (or, in this case, leather), what the grain did if he shifted it about so it was facing the other way, and so on.

This usually led up to a couple hundred of Naruto going over each step as he learned them, making all of the mistakes possible, and discovering the hows and whys behind each and every thing, and in some cases discovering better ways of doing them.

It had become obvious to the boy long ago that whatever his clones learned, he knew as well. His first impulse had been to go off to read every book in the library, but then he'd thought of how BORED he'd be without something new every so often, and how quickly that could drive him mad, and refrained.

He'd read a few dictionaries, and an encyclopedia set or two that way. They were really very interesting and he sent clones to go back over them every so often.

But the books of the library were his solace, his comfort, and his source of new stuff to liven up the same old day over, and over and over. He didn't feel like wasting that in one tremendous burst of knowledge and then... nothing.

No, that'd drive him mad within a week. So he kept and preserved his clones for helping him find stuff out about whatever trade or skill he'd been learning and the best way of doing that without wasting opportunities was to use the help they gave him to reinforce whatever lessons he'd already gotten.

Learning martial arts? Okay, that took on the same form of approximately a few hundred clones performing whatever lessons he'd gotten out of the ninja academy that day.

Following through on one of Anko's lessons on poisons? Well, with a hundred or so clones playing with every variation on that recipe, he'd learned quite a bit more than she knew about the actual formulation. And, what surprised him (but shouldn't have) was that those mushrooms and things that had killed him when he'd eaten them, discovering herbs in the forest, were some of the deadliest things around - many, even, that Anko didn't know about!

They had mixed dyes that way, pounded metals that way, reinforced what he was learning about Konoha history or academy skills that way...

It only helped when he had them doing something different. They were all exactly like him, so if he had them doing those exercises over the same way as him they'd all, collectively, do them exactly the same way and learn nothing more than he would've doing them alone. So, it HAD to be different or else he'd gain no benefit to learning from them!

But, as a side benefit of having each and every clone do everything just a touch differently in order to maximize his training, they had a phenomenal understanding of the hows and whys behind the way things worked. He'd made just about every mistake it was possible to make, and learned from them to do it better the next time he did those skilled tasks.

Doing things perfectly didn't teach you much, other than to repeat those same steps the next time. Doing them wrong taught you LOADS! Like, just what temperature that chemical dye would explode at, why you tied a knot this way instead of that to prevent fraying, what it meant to the strength and flexibility of the metal to be pounded on this way instead of that, what shapes meant for their durability, and so on.

Yes, having every spectacular failure under the sun happen to him gave the boy knowledge in many cases exceeding that of seasoned masters, because they couldn't risk it and didn't want it to blow up on them. Also, to them, failures meant lost money and lost business, and in some cases hefty repair costs. But Naruto didn't have to worry about any of that, and it improved his trades in almost all cases, as he knew EXACTLY what he could get away with, what it all meant, and how to do it again.

However, it did NOT help him with his chakra training because of one simple thing - they all had the exact same starting point, and all had identical minds, so without knowledge of hundreds of variations on how to practice the same technique, he was helpless to learn any more than he could've alone.

If a hundred of him started at the same point and ran ten feet, they'd only be ten feet from the starting point, not one thousand. In things like tailoring, where he could start all up and down the line examining it from every angle, that was more like a relay race where one of him stood every ten feet, and after they'd all run ten, the one at the end stood a thousand feet away from the one at the beginning, and all of the in between territory got covered.

But so far his chakra control training hadn't worked like that. He had only one mind, and couldn't objectively stand back to examine it from more angles than he himself could think of.

It was frustrating, and why he'd gone for help so often from teachers instead of just using clones.

Sometimes it mattered, like a couple hundred clones off on a couple hundred different trees all faced variations on those slopes, angles of the sun, wind and so on that prompted him to learn in slightly different ways. That helped, but only a little more than he could've managed alone.

But Konoha didn't have all that many bodies of water, and the variations were tiny. All water is more or less flat, and the rest of the environmental details didn't seem to matter as much.

Even the current in that river was the same from day to day.

He'd plucked leaves off of every plant in Konoha, and most in the surrounding forest, to get enough variation to learn that one quickly, and even so it had only helped him a little, as the particulars of whichever leaf he used weren't too terribly significant to the chakra control exercise. Although, at least there he could send some clones to perform their practice indoors, outdoors, on top of the Hokage monument, hanging by wires from trees, and so on to get the most out of their multiplied experiences.

A stitch or a dye recipe could be preformed hundreds of different ways. Most often chakra control could not, and so his training there suffered. Well, not exactly suffered, but was no where near as accelerated.

Still, leatherworking stood in one of those sweet spots where there were tons of books available on the subject, dozens of teachers who could be tricked into revealing their trade secrets, and hundreds of different combinations of thickness, types, and styles of both thread and leather.

So, by trying out those combinations, Naruto could be running through that material like a machine, each clone taking a different part and exploring the topic from there, which in turn gave him more material to explore the next day as those clones came up with questions he couldn't answer. It never took him more than a few weeks of his private training schedule to become a tolerably proficient professional. Mastery came soon after, often less than a month total into his training.

On beyond typical mastery came soon after that, wherein he was exploring strange and atypical or neglected areas of the skill, doing what was odd just to see what happened and learning from those results. By venturing beyond the standard ways of doing things he found a whole lot of ways NOT to do something, and the occasional gem of a much better method.

By collecting those much better methods together, he became more skilled than practically anyone in Konoha, or perhaps the Elemental Countries. It was all just a matter of trying what hadn't been done before to see if any of it worked. Enough of it did that he'd learned things no one else knew.

The boy didn't know everything. There were clans of masters who'd carefully cultivated their art over generations, and after centuries had discovered secrets they shared with no one. The boy from Konoha did not have access to all of the environments or materials, so could not play with everything. Nor could he think of everything by himself. His imagination, great as it was, still had limits that could not encompass every lucky break or discovery made by dozens or hundreds of minds across generations.

So, he was not perfect.

Still, he knew a lot. A very great deal of the secrets known to those of his home village also yielded to his repeated infiltration attempts. Plus, his skill was phenomenal, and even if he didn't personally know every secret, trick or special recipe known in the world, he knew enough that others didn't so he could, with ease, take his place as one who knew enough to be counted among those great clans of master craftsmen... that is, if anyone from Konoha would ever acknowledge the village pariah knowing anything useful at all.

They had a blind spot there, and usually didn't want to, unless it was rubbed in their faces by something they desperately wanted.

Things like clothes.

Women liked clothes, and they'd liked them enough so that Naruto was, by then, sick to death of looking at them naked. Well, the ugly ones anyway.

Which, brought him back to the manly trade of dealing with leather.

The pattern was the same as usual, learn one lesson in the morning and that afternoon use hundreds of clones to practice it from every angle, exploring all of the many different possibilities so he'd fully understand it by the time it came for him to be taught the next one on the following day.

He'd never yet abandoned his exploration of a skill until he had the combined available knowledge of every practitioner he could ferret out in Konoha, plus whatever he could discover on his own.

He could do this with ordinary civilian stuff. Ninja skills were far more heavily guarded, and people who taught them more suspicious in general.

He'd touched on doing this with cooking, and had discovered the possibility of working with scents and perfumes during his work on dyes. But for now those seemed far too girly to him. He didn't need to be even MORE popular with the female set of Konoha, next they'd be breaking down his door! Well, whenever he revealed those skills, anyway. For now, he had everything back to plain old anonymity at the start of every reset, and there were times when he was beginning to treasure that.

Well, in some ways. In others it still sucked worse than pond scum. At least his mistakes didn't follow him and he could repeat the good stuff. But what he wouldn't give for some spontaneity again!

Perhaps even just a surprise or two!

Of course, some surprises came that were entirely unpleasant. It did not do Naruto's feelings of masculinity any good when, some time later, shortly after he began to work in leather, Kiba's sister, Hana, wanted to get herself fitted for new outfits, this time in leather.

Nor was she the only one.

Ah, well. At least the noble women left him alone. Of course, that could be counted on as a mixed blessing, because once he'd crested about a certain point where he'd begun to reach the same heights of skill, the noble GUYS wanted him to be their tailor!

No way, not gunna happen. It was worth running away from Konoha and dodging hunter ninja for a day to avoid staring at those hairy behinds!

And some of those guys had wanted lace trim on their leather, too.

I I I

Anko's favorite classroom was a fallen log where a teacher sat on one end and the student on the other. She loved to intermingle her lessons within the course of whatever they were doing, but it was there she gave her lectures if she wanted his full attention.

"Tools are the most neglected form of all the ninja arts, kiddo. Everyone wants flashy techniques, and most can recognize the value of good martial arts or illusions, while everyone is impressed with proper seals, even if only the upper level ninja usually touch on the study of them. But most people, when you ask about tools, can think of only one or two basic ones, the kunai, or a sword, or wire."

She stopped to chew and swallow before looking him directly in the eye. "That is a mistake. Just as bad and just as deadly as underestimating any other school of ninja arts. A ninja tool is anything a ninja could use, Naruto," Anko told her student before eating the last ball of her dango. "This stick for example." She waved the bare wood around. "It's unimpressive, cheap, and looks unimportant. You could get thousands of them for the price of one kunai. But I've killed with one of these, and the body is just as dead as if I'd stabbed him with a flashier weapon. But I'm not telling you to become an expert of dango stick-fu!"

She flicked the stick and it embedded itself into a nearby tree, only she paid no attention to it as she leaned forward to address the young boy. "That's a mistake I'm telling you NOT to make, kiddo! Now I want you to listen closely. You must never, NEVER rely too much on one trick!"

The older ninja touched her pupil's cheek. "Just about everyone in the ninja world grabs hold of one tool, be it a weapon, chain, puppets, or anything else they can think of, and spends their lives dedicated to perfecting that. To me, that's a weakness. Everything can be countered. If you devote too much time to study of one art you are vulnerable to those who've studied ways around that art. There are techniques no sword can block, bloodlines that could find any concealed puppet master, chains can be turned against you and wires cut. Lots of good ninja have died being too loyal to one idea. Don't do that."

She leaned back on the log, still matching gazes with her rapt pupil, who was absorbing this like a sponge. She smiled, noting that. "Everything has a counter, kid. Not just tools, but everything. A Hyuga can use their bloodline to find a hidden puppet user, not once but every time right off the bat. But neither their fancy bloodline, nor their Gentle Fist style would protect them from a poison gas pellet you threw down at their feet. Facing an Uchiha? Pop a smoke bomb and hit him when he can't see you. Let him copy your move as you throw a grenade down, it doesn't matter unless he has his own, which he won't unless he can already use 'em - and it isn't hard, so he's stolen nothing of value from you, then you hit him in the dark."

The dark haired woman leaned back with a smile. "The arts of silent killing, striking out in the dark where neither you nor your opponent can see, were really popular back in the days when there were Uchihas all over the place."

Naruto nodded to show he'd absorbed the lesson.

"Good," teacher acknowledged student's admission of understanding. "So, if you go up against a superior martial artist, let him face your puppet, or a clone, or several, or both, or loads of each, while you do something nasty like drop a wide area ninjutsu technique on him AND your clones. You can always make more clones, but once your enemy is dead he'll have a real tough time coming back from that."

Naruto made a scowl. "Yah, but what about a superior martial artist who can smell which one is the real you, or kills off your clones too fast?"

"Pop off a stink bomb," the special jonin gave a careless shrug. "Most things that give advantages can also be terrible weaknesses. If he's got a super sense of smell, use that against him. Then, while he's reeling from the shock, hit him with something hard to take him down fast. We're ninja! Fight dirty!"

The blond's eyes grew wide in understanding and his jaw dropped wide in awe and appreciation of her devious nature.

That the way past Kiba in the preliminary rounds!

Anko was nodding, seeing he understood. "So the trick is to be flexible. Yah, it's good to have a sword and you'd better know how to use it if you're going to carry one. But don't be too dedicated to the way of the samurai or some guy will come along to turn that skill back on you. So, if you meet someone who can beat any swordsman, don't BE a swordsman when you fight him, resort to other tricks instead. Use the sword, but also use knives, needles, special moves and chakra powers. Use wires, chains and all that, just don't depend on them. Be ready to change tactics to better suit your situation."

Now her grin widened, and she scooted closer to the boy. "I said tools are neglected, but everyone carries some. Aren't you going to ask me why?" He shook his head and she snorted. "'Cause you expect I'll tell you, right?" He gave a fervent nod, and she smiled wider, looking out over the forest. "Well, you're right. Tools are neglected, kiddo, because nobody thinks much about them. They look to other things to solve their problems, when just about all situations can be answered by having the right tool."

Once more she scooted closer while pretending to study the scenery. "Say you need someone captured. Wires will do your work for you better than most flashy techniques. Someone is better than you in martial arts? Use a puppet to draw him in, glue him to the floor so he can't touch you. Or blow his knees out from under him. Explosive tags are the solution to so many problems, and a decent placement of one can equalize a lot of weakness in other areas. Don't be afraid to use the environment against an enemy. In fact, go out of your way to CREATE environments that favor you over your enemy! It'll pay off in the long run, believe me."

"Remember," she touched his nose to emphasize her point, "EVERYTHING is a tool! Don't be afraid to use em! And, when you come right down to it, tools are just as useful and varied as chakra techniques, and just like those special moves, the more you know the more powerful you'll be."

"Right!" Naruto nodded fervently.

Anko concealed a glance down to the untouched dango stick in his hands, almost sorrowing, as she'd intended to stop this lesson on a high note by jumping him, but it looked like the paralysis drops she'd put in his food were going to go to waste today.

Pity, as she'd this long speech prepared to give him about how tools could even be used to break long dry spells or lose that pesky virginity.

Unbeknownst to her, he'd heard it before, many times, each under slightly different circumstances and after completely different lectures that he'd prompted by asking completely different questions. A few had been on various aspects of torture and interrogation, several had been upon use of poisons. However, this was the first focused solely on tools in general, and the previous ones did NOT include that bit about using stink bombs to get past Kiba and into the finals!

I I I  
Author's Notes:

I hope you all had a merry Christmas. It was for me, although I'm sure you noticed that I took the two days of the eve and Christmas Day itself off. That was deliberate, but the only vacation I have planned.

Writing this story is too much fun to want many breaks!


	19. Chapter 19

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Nineteen

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto was going to beat Kiba.

It was a mighty plan, and it was with unspeakable relief that Naruto set about performing it. Everything had to be perfect.

Naruto was so excited he could hardly contain himself.

A big part of the reason he'd never thought about using a stink bomb to defeat Kiba was that he'd only ever thought in terms of things he'd had or used before, and mildly-costly, disposable ninja equipment hadn't been top on his list when it had already been so hard to get a decent kunai.

However, for what he had in mind they became a reasonable expenditure. The boy even congratulated himself on his patience and forbearance, having the forethought to NOT jump directly into the fight he wanted to win so badly, spending a few resets getting reasonable quality stink bombs and practicing so he knew how to use them well.

No point going into debt on something he hoped would get him out of the infinite time loops, and thus make him actually have to pay off those debts instead of having a reset wipe them away. And, no point in placing his trust in equipment he didn't know how to use adequately.

It would've been just like the former, impulsive, pre-time-loop him to have pulled the thing out of his pocket for the first time during the fight where he was going to use it, and spend vital seconds struggling with the shrink wrap and reading the instructions, or fling it down without pulling the pin or something so it didn't go off.

It took entering the endless resets to break him of that careless habit, but broken it was.

Having gotten as much mastery of the new devices as his patience could stand, Naruto woke up on his special morning, the one he'd chosen to be the big day out of which all of the resets would end, and burst into a flurry of activity.

The morning had to be perfect.

One of his clones ran off to the Uchiha estate to 'look for Sasuke' to follow through on the pattern that could get him that property. Another went off to find Hinata and extract her from her house for breakfast and a nice chat before walking to the center with her. Others burst into flurries of activity that would follow other paths, creating the armor sets he'd devised for all of his friends (his own teammates didn't count), clothing (fairly restrained, restricted to ninja outfits only), and other essential supplies.

Naruto himself, the real one, began a set of exercises that he hoped would have him fit and in shape in the month and eight days it took to reach the third test of the chunin exam.

Practicing his martial arts so he sucked less was a big part of that. It was his ambition to have trained muscle memories of those moves by the time he had to use them.

He was so impatient for all of the old stuff to pass that he could hardly stand to wait through the written exam, positively vibrating in his chair until one of the proctors marked him off a point for cheating. Then he forced himself to be calm, or at least still.

Outside the testing center, some of his clones went on brewing supplies of paralysis poisons, sleep poisons, hallucinogens (almost as useful as illusion techniques for screwing up an enemy during combat), a rare few poisons that could disrupt chakra flow and control, and of course the deadly ones. Some of this collection also grew far more potent over time, so the longer you had it, the more potent it was.

They stocked them in contact form, gas pellets, sticky gums that dried into nearly invisible sheens for coating weapons like kunai and darts, and even a few varieties useful only for slipping into another's food, because you never knew what kind of opportunities you'd face.

Poison was a very important tool in the well supplied ninja's arsenal.

Orochimaru was immune to most poisons and had a freakish amount of resistance even to the ones Anko knew nothing about. Naruto knew, he'd tried them all out on the sannin, each and every one he himself knew of, and those ones that did affect the snake freak, even slightly, the amazing S-rank ninja would use a chakra technique to throw off moments after being hit.

Anko periodically tried to help Naruto acquire a similar resistance to poisons, but it was one of those things that had to be built up over time, even with the aid of chakra techniques to speed it along.

Pity, as that was one of those things that could be enormously useful.

His venomous arsenal also didn't help much in the fight against Kiba, as the dog boy would just take more and more of those energy booster pills he had, relying on the boost to his chakra and constitution to shake off most things, until it came to a point of choosing to either kill the boy through an overdose, or lose the match to the pumped-up berserker.

Naruto had so far avoided choosing to kill his friend, although it had been a close call once or twice there, as his frustration and agitation over being trapped in these resets mounted.

But still the boy's good sense and morals won out, knowing as he did that he'd never be able to forgive himself for killing a friend, especially if that brought him out of the resets and it didn't get undone.

Naruto was willing to put up with a very unpleasant life in order to avoid doing even more unpleasant things. Even if no one would blame him for having done it during a no-holds-barred sanctioned combat match.

Neji, on the other hand, was enough of a jerk that Naruto wouldn't mind using his little poison packets to drop the arrogant Hyuga bastard, and only part of that was having had to watch him beat up Hinata so many times.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of waiting, the morning of the test in the Forest of Death arrived. Determined to see it for the last time, Naruto wanted to do it right, so he showed up wearing his full outfit of ninja gear - but he also showed up late, after most of the other teams had already arrived. Not coincidentally, the other two teams of Konoha rookies were also outfitted with full sets of his newly devised equipment.

Each was customized to them and their fighting styles, so they bore only a partial resemblance to Naruto. But after seeing so many of their fellow new genin teams wearing new outfits, neither Sakura nor Sasuke had much to say when they spotted Naruto also wearing his.

"Oy! Sakura! Sasuke!" the blond boy called out cheerfully, no need to fake the wide grin he'd pasted over his face. "Old man Hokage gave me an old abandoned property yesterday! Look what I found just lying around the place!"

Sure, it was only the raw materials that had been lying there. The unique style in which he'd put them together was all his own. But THEY didn't need to know that!

His pair of teammates, dressed in their usual clothes as no one gave them any gifts of new equipment that day (never mind that Naruto was the only one giving them, and didn't feel either deserved it) gave him a slightly sullen once over that turned into a far more detailed examination.

Gone was the normal orange jumpsuit. Oh, the blond genin still wore orange, he just wore it in a completely different pattern, one based on tiger stripes - as having been snuck up on by the tigers in the forest too many times to count, the repeating boy knew it to be an effectual camouflage pattern. Nor was it one solid color of orange, but rather a gradually shifting shade that started out fairly light and grew darker, eventually becoming a dusky red towards the back. Again, that was based on his experience with those tigers.

And, having tested it out more than a few times, he knew from experience that it made him much harder to spot in the forest's environs.

Also, in place of the jumpsuit was a tabard and cloak design. Naruto did this for the very simple reason that it concealed his armor and prevented light from glinting off the metal. Also, by keeping the light from shining directly on those plates it stayed cooler overall, and thus much easier to wear. For that same reason, he'd attached oversleeves and leggings of light, blousy material that added effectively no weight, wouldn't cut or bind easily, yet completed the harmless covering concealing his armored nature.

Holding the tabard closed and close to his body was a belt whose buckle was in the shape of Konoha's leaf symbol, a symbol that got repeated in tiger stripes on the center of his chest. The boy wore no helmet for now but when he did could conceal that under a turban, hood, or head cloth like those from Sand wore to keep dust from mixing with the sweat of their hair, and with a drape down the back for keeping the sun off of their necks.

With the armor concealed, that was all they could see aside from the wide belt and criss crossed front and back bandoleers covered with pockets, all of which were stuffed with useful ninja tools, from senbon, shuriken and wire spools on up to bags of smoke pellets, stink bombs and a decent supply of poisons. A holster full of kunai hung from either hip.

Those were just the immediate use items, the 'grab it and go' arsenal of rapid access tools meant for dealing with most occasions. He had many more, multiple reloads on up to several puppets he'd created (he was by no means a master of that art, yet, but the ones he'd crafted for himself were tolerable by most any standard), on storage scrolls hidden in chest pockets.

All of this, from his bandoleers to his pockets, matched his camo pattern perfectly, blending to where it was hard to notice upon the rest of his outfit. The cloak, open front though it may have been, had folds that made it far from obvious the extent of the arsenal he was carrying.

Just like it should be.

Naruto approached his team with his head uncovered partly so they could get a good look and know it was him, but also because it was so much fun to grin and see their faces contort in response to his expressions. Ya gotta have the simple joys in life!

"You found THAT lying around your new place?" Sakura demanded, disbelief evident in her voice. "You look like a bad carpet, or a tasteless rug!"

That was unflattering, but to a certain extent true. He hadn't been able to use any shiny fabrics to make his new clothes, as the glints would too readily give him away when he was hiding. So it had all been textured cloths used in their creation, to better match the hairy pattern of a tiger in breaking up and refusing to return a strong image in shadowy light.

Still, he looked far from bad in those new clothes, so the insult was far from warranted. Even in their practicality, the outfit looked good, which was quite an achievement in a stealth suit like that one.

Sasuke grunted, looking away, having no comment.

"The object of this mission is to stay alive, Haruno-san," Naruto told her with a mildly cold glance. "Not to look good."

Then the moment was broken by Ino's squeal as she grabbed his arm and told him how he looked good. "Naruto! I've got to thank you for our new outfits! Mine fit me like a glove, and Choji and Shikamaru almost look presentable for once! Ooh! I see you've got some new clothes yourself!"

Sakura stared as her former best friend jabbered, before asking her, "What are you wearing?"

"Oh! My new ninja outfit. Naruto gave it to me, do you like it?" The blonde girl did a little spin to show off her new attire.

Having to serve most of the same needs, it had most of the same basic appearance as Naruto's, with the cloak and tabard with leggings and extra sleeves effect. However, hers was done in a deep bluish purple that was almost black depending upon how the light struck it, like a panther.

She even had a cowl with a pair of cat ears on it. But instead of carrying his vast array of tools, her belt loops supported a pair of sheathed swords.

Sasuke had turned a hard gaze to his teammate and the fangirl joyously squealing over her new ninja uniform. In low, suspicious tones, he told them, "There was a clank when you two touched. What is it?"

"Body armor," Naruto told him shortly, with a shrug. He tapped his chest twice, producing a metal click each time, dulled by the layers of intervening cloth. "Since it's a life or death struggle today we figured it would be a good idea to have something other than our skins to stop blows with."

Ino hated to be anywhere near where Sasuke was sending so hostile a gaze, so she quickly excused herself. "Um, sorry. Gotta run. My team's waiting and it looks like they're about to start the test."

And with that, she vanished back over to where Choji was eating potato chips in his false fire specialist garb and Shikamaru, wearing an outfit similar to Ino's, had removed his cloak and tabard, as if casually, but truly in a carefully calculated and deliberate attempt to let the rest of the assembled genin see how heavily armored he was underneath that disguise.

It was working. There were several teams making obvious mental notes of which genin teams had such members, and one could see the gears turning as they simply assumed anyone in those outfits was heavily armored.

It was a true assumption. What was perhaps incorrect about the conclusions they were drawing was that those so armored had to be close combat ninja, and tricking them into making that assumption was a good part of why the lazy boy on Ino's team had exerted himself to remove those parts to expose his armor, as letting them think he was a close combat expert improved his chances to survive the upcoming test.

Many would now avoid him who might otherwise have beaten him.

Ino's departure did not immediately exempt her from Sasuke's gaze, as the boy followed her with his eyes upon catching sight of where she was going, and what her teammate, and thus by inference probably her, was wearing.

Naruto had spared no effort or expense in making those suits of armor. With the helmet on, the body was covered from head to toe in interlocking metal plates of exacting standards and intricate design. In some places it was joined in a segmented fashion based on a lobster's tail, in others tiny links of almost delicate seeming chainmail that also incorporated equally tiny scales overlapping like those of a fish.

That was a general overview available at a glance. Even to non-experts those sets were obviously well crafted, for all of their strangeness. But neither Sasuke, nor any of those other observing genin, had much time for a close study of all of those parts as, sensing their attention shift toward looking for weaknesses, Shikamaru once again donned his extra coverings.

Naruto grinned. The armor was surprisingly comfortable to wear and flexible to fight in, but also surprisingly quiet for all the metal joints involved. It was perhaps lighter than he would've liked, not having the same stopping power as it could've if he'd used thicker plates. But none of those who would be wearing it that day were particularly strong, either, and they couldn't afford to lose their mobility lumbering about like bricks.

For one reason, if they did so it would give them away as not being combat experts, who also had to be able to move to fight effectively in their armor.

Still, it was stronger than one might think if they judged solely by its weight. It would take a good blow from a strong arm to penetrate, and it would take a better shot than most ninja in combat were likely to get. Even so, the blow could not go very far through the metal unless there was far more force involved than most of those assembled were likely to muster.

It would've been both heavier and stronger, save for the fact that those who now wore it could not bear very much weight. So sacrifices had had to be made in order to preserve mobility and maximize flexibility.

Orochimaru could blow through the stuff like tinfoil, either with his sword or using jutsu, as Naruto knew from close, personal experience. Anyone else, though, had a more than decent chance of being stopped. It even made his shadow clones hardier, as a strike had to penetrate the duplicate's body to disrupt its chakra system to dispel it. A heavy enough blow could still cause enough of a bruise to do it despite the armor, but nevertheless it required more than it used to to kill one of them when they had his armor on.

And it looked dang impressive.

Although, one drawback it had, as Naruto considered what his future plans were, was that it could not be worn effectively with a chunin vest, as the thick cloth of those flak jackets would put enough pressure on the outside of those plates to make movement inside of them very difficult.

Oh well. He'd solve the problem in realtime. And as he resolved to do so his grin grew even wider.

Sakura huffed, suddenly jealous now that she knew about Ino's advantage in having armor. It looked so expensive, too! Crossing her arms, she declared, "She looks happy. Naruto, didn't she say she got that getup from you?"

The blond boy on her team answered with a shrug, his grin never faltering a moment. "You'd be surprised what you'd find around the old place I got hold of. Like these for instance!" He held up a bag of jutsu scrolls, conveniently lifted from Sasuke's apartment.

"What are those?" the pink haired girl blinked, peering at them more closely while Sasuke pretended he wasn't noticing or looking himself.

"Ninja techniques!" Naruto shouted brightly. "I was up all night practicing them!" he declared, glad to have discovered that little lie covered him from all sorts of suspicion as he used them, without putting any pressure on him to know them well enough to rely on in combat.

He had his limiters on, but was hoping not to use them.

"Oh," Sakura mumbled, put back and humbled by this, suddenly feeling outclassed as a ninja. She'd always placed her value on their team as being more than Naruto's, but with those new techniques...

She tried to firm up her opinion of herself by saying there was no way he could've mastered them... except she knew the story of him learning a jonin level technique in just a few hours one night. And there was that armor he must be wearing under that new outfit. That gave an advantage.

Very quickly the pink haired one found herself questioning her place on the team, wondering what she offered to them.

I I I

The only role Naruto had to play in the defeat of Orochimaru was to hang back and taunt Sasuke to get him upset enough to fight hard and impress the freaky missing ninja with the Uchiha's potential.

That was all.

And a clone could do that much, no problem, so Naruto felt free to explore the rest of the forest to see how everyone was doing. He also had clones doing this, of course. He'd been tracking some teams all along. But still, it felt different somehow to have his own eyes experience something.

Also, it gave him a chance to stop and make nin-info cards about the various plants and animals he encountered. It was no use trying to stock a library of them before, as the resets had always erased them. But still, he could get the experts back in Konoha to explain what they knew of those plants when he took back images of them and described the ground and stuff they were in, and that was always useful.

However, this time he had a rather large clone army doing those cards, as this time there was an excellent chance for him to do it right and for there to be no more resets. So he wanted his library.

That thought was making him positively giddy.

Today the real Naruto was going to watch Gaara defeat a strong Rain team again. That technique the lead Rain ninja used, guiding about thousands of senbon needles without using wire, had been fascinating to the young blond for some time, and between what he'd observed so far and that book on chakra control theory from the ABNU teacher library, he was almost close to being able to create his own version.

And, as the Rain ninja using it declared, guiding thousands of needles to their targets just using your chakra sounded deadly. Well, deadly to anyone but Gaara.

Naruto got back to the camp Sakura made to guard Sasuke's feverish body just as the team from Sound were making their attack. He waited until Lee jumped in to rescue Sakura before making his own attack from behind the trio from Sound, catching the guy with pipes through his arms in a Dragon Flame Projection just as the guy was about to act to save his teammate from dying by Lee's Primary Lotus.

The distraction proved fatal to the Sound ninja in Lee's grasp, as he fell on his head and his skull exploded. It wasn't a good time to be the guy with pipes down his arms, either, as he got a fairly serious roasting by Naruto, who'd stayed calm through this whole exchange by virtue of having been through it many times before, and so didn't get excited enough to overload his limiters.

Sound team defeated, and the scroll destroyed by Orochimaru a fake Naruto had planted for that purpose, Team 7 had both of the scrolls they needed to pass, so could go on directly to the tower.

Sakura, concerned for Sasuke's health, demanded they do so in order that he get medical attention. Naruto, who was able to provide such attention, said nothing, but formed two clones and carried the Uchiha there on a stretcher, not even jostling him as they avoided the teams that lay in wait around the tower, trying to catch those on their way there with scrolls.

None of those were able to surprise him, as too many already had. So he'd memorized all of their patrol and ambush patterns.

And that put them firmly in place to wait for the preliminaries.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Well, that didn't cover half of what I'd wanted to. I don't know why but inspiration was running really short on me as I wrote this, so I spent a ton of time talking about stuff like equipment that I'd already decided on, because I couldn't cudgel my brain into working out the fight scene I had been hoping to cover.

Odd, and I hope it frees up again soon. Mostly this story has flowed like water. Hmm, maybe the snow outside is freezing it. No idea.


	20. Chapter 20

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty

by Lionheart

I I I

"Of course the prelim fights are rigged!" Anko told him once. "We're NINJA, kiddo! Unless you're looking underneath the surface you're not seeing the real story at all! All it takes is a very minor lightning jutsu to adjust those results to be whatever you want them to be!"

"So I could..." Naruto began eagerly.

"Not likely, kid," Anko snorted, cutting him off. "Sarutobi plans to be there himself adjusting the matches. Unless you've got Kage-level skills at subtle manipulation of the random choice system, you can forget it."

Naruto had tried, of course, but so far he hadn't found out even what jutsu they used. However, that hadn't been the end of that conversation.

"But then, why..?"

"Are the fights so unmatched?" Anko finished his sentence for him. "Look at it this way, kiddo. All non-hostile ninja countries openly send representatives to watch our chunin exam final matches to get a gauge of our strength, and a ton of our own and allied nobility show up as well. We can't afford to look weak. So, the head examiner, or the Hokage when he's present, select strong ones to go on by giving them weak opponents. They make sure to have our best going out before the stadium audience, while the weak or stupid who just got lucky get eliminated in private before anything could embarrass us."

"But..." Naruto's eyes had widened in horror. "Kiba is strong, and..." he stopped, unable to complete his sentence.

Anko gave the boy's hair a ruffle, unable to sense why he should be so horrified at that thought. "Yeah, the dog user is a good candidate for chunin, so I'm sure the Hokage will match him up against someone weak so he can go on. Don't worry about it! The prelim matches are still a week away!"

Well, for her they'd been. Naruto, who'd already been through them many times before just got faced with the thought that the Hokage felt he was weak, as he'd put him up against Kiba to pass the dog user.

He swallowed, trying to disguise how much that hurt. "So, who am I likely to go up against?"

Anko put a finger to her lip and thought about it. Finally she shrugged, and put on a smile for him, ruffling his hair. "Oh, kid. Don't be so impatient! You'll get someone weak, I'm certain!"

But even then he knew she'd been lying, trying to comfort him. It didn't make sense, as she knew he was stronger than most of the genin out there, even stronger than a few of their chunin, when he had his limiters working that is, but as she'd never seen him in a real fight with his emotions going that reset they'd always been up, so she should've been just as certain of his strength.

So he'd been mystified as to why she had no faith in his ability to pass.

But still, that explained why his many efforts to stir things up a bit by helping to control who got what scrolls in the forest hadn't helped as much as he'd hoped they could.

"But..." the boy had pressed, still very much confused. "What happens when a strong person fights someone strong? Or when two weak ninja fight?"

Anko had chuckled, ruffling his hair once again before whispering in his ear. "Naruto, that usually happens when Sarutobi misjudges someone. Think about it, he doesn't have time to personally get to know every chunin candidate in the village. He has to rely on reports given by teachers and team leaders, who sometimes write glowing, flattering reviews on weak ninja, or bad mouth strong ones they don't happen to like very much."

"So, Ino and Sakura..." Naruto stuttered.

"There's a good matchup," Anko declared happily. "That Ino girl is part of the next generation of a famous team. I've heard their instructor bragging in the jonin lounge about how great they'll be. So she's going to be strong, while your teammate, on the other hand, isn't. She's pretty pathetic and useless by Kakashi's reports. So that would be a good matchup, an easy fight getting the strong one to go to the final rounds!"

Naruto gave the special jonin a significant look, telling her that he knew that Kakashi badmouthed all of his team EXCEPT Sasuke, whom he praised constantly.

Anko adopted an expression that said, yeah, he was right. But she was sorry he had to know that piece of data. But then she shot him a grin that said she didn't agree with Kakashi's opinions of him in the least.

That was comforting.

"So, Lee and Gaara..." he continued to ponder.

Anko was nodding, pursing her lips. "Yeah, that's another likely match, as no kid unable to mold chakra can be much of a ninja, but that Sand kid is going to kill whoever he goes up against. So, yeah, I could agree with your thoughts there, putting up the most useless of the chunin hopefuls, probably dragged to the prelims by the rest of his team, as a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered by the strongest and most ruthless one."

"Lee is actually really strong," Naruto corrected her.

"Really?" Anko said with some surprise, raising her eyebrows. "I know Gai likes to brag about him, but he's always been a little off. And if the kid can't mold chakra to create ninja techniques..."

Naruto almost chuckled, shaking his head. "No, you don't understand. Lee's got a work ethic that could make ants blush with envy. He may have a defect stopping him from using advanced chakra techniques, but he works so hard to compensate for it that you'd be surprised at how powerful he's gotten. His martial arts are upper jonin level, easily!"

"Really?" Anko had asked with some surprise.

"Really," the blond confirmed, nodding. "And then he can open the Celestial Gates to get even stronger when he needs to."

"Hmm," Anko paused, thoughtfully.

He presumed she'd gone off to tell the Hokage what he'd said, because the prelim matchups had gone slightly differently that time, with Gaara facing Sakura, who bowed out in the first moments, and Lee beating up on Ino a bit until she, too, surrendered her chances.

After that conversation Naruto had watched those preliminary rounds with new eyes.

Sasuke, the Amazing Uchiha, always got one of the weakest opponents there was, always a one-trick pony, and usually that chakra draining guy who went down in one hit. Neji Hyuga always got his cousin Hinata, and having watched the Hokage's face as that match progressed, Naruto got sickened. The old man was deliberately letting the strong Neji take out his frustrations on the meek and mild Hinata, testing main house against branch to see which was stronger.

Naruto felt chilled as he'd watched the Hokage's face through those tests a few times, not even paying attention to the matches in order to better watch the Hokage's reaction to them.

The old guy stood there smiling as people fought and nearly died. There was no empathy for those who were suffering. To him, they may as well have been pieces on a playing board.

Naruto was both astonished and sickened.

When he'd brought it up to Anko, she'd put an arm around his shoulders and told him, "Kid, the Hokage's got the worst job in all the village. He's got to send people out to fight, and sometimes they die. If he gets too worked up over it he couldn't even do his job, and then we'd all suffer for it. So don't be too hard on the old guy. He's got to make tough choices and hard decisions all day long, every day. That's what being a Hokage is."

And that thought had really soured the boy on his future career choice.

But that was all in the past, something done on long ago resets. Naruto knew now that he'd have to be fighting Kiba regardless of most other factors, like which teams passed on to the preliminaries from the forest.

His gramps would send him up against Kiba so Kiba could go on to fight during the final rounds. After much pondering, Naruto had decided that maybe the Hokage was even trying to be kind to him, as most of the really strong ones during the prelims wouldn't feel at all bad about maiming their foes. Kiba was comparatively gentle, he'd stop when you stopped moving. There wasn't any malice to his takedowns, unlike some others.

So at least there was a little bit of kindness in being sent up against the dog user. But that DID mean that the Hokage didn't feel that Naruto was ready to be a chunin, and that realization hurt something awful.

Well, today was they day he'd prove otherwise!

Of course, that left open the question of what Sarutobi was thinking those times Naruto had been forced to go up against Gaara during the prelims. He was the one arranging those matches, so why did he do it?

But Naruto was so excited about passing the preliminary matches at last that he didn't care anymore!

Today he was going to beat up Kiba!

I I I

The preliminary fights were going as usual. Sasuke had beaten up on the 'one hit wonder' from Kabuto's team before going off with Kakashi, and while waiting out the remainder of those fights, Naruto turned to Anko, who was present on account of him, and asked, "Anko, you once told me that since we are ninja, unless we are looking under the surface we aren't seeing the real story at all. Does that have something to do with what Kakashi said once, about 'looking underneath the underneath'?"

The special jonin looked on her prodigy, somewhat amazed. "He was telling you guys that garbage without explaining it? What kind of a teacher is he? No, don't answer. We'll get to that in a moment. Yeah, that's some crock he's worked up, a short form of something the Fourth Hokage once said, that 'Civilians look on the surface, while ninja see reasons underneath. But to be the best of ninja, we must look beyond even that.' But, of course, Crackashi managed to cut it down to a trite phrase that doesn't mean anything unless you know the whole story behind it. Sheesh!" The woman rolled her eyes.

Curious about her previous statement, Naruto perhaps indelicately pressed. "So, what kind of a teacher IS he?"

Anko looked at him, acknowledging that he was a bit rude to push it, but also that he had a right to know. She sighed, turned her back on the fights going on down below, and looked out a window and off into the forest. "Now, kid, I don't want to go deeply into exploring his screwed up psyche, but in lots of ways Kakashi has always struck me as something of a coward. Porn is no comparison to a real partner, and he is the Legendary Copy Nin! Being famous and powerful (and being an elite, so very well paid for his services) picking up chicks should not be outside his ability. You know why he doesn't? I think he's scared to."

"Scared to?" Naruto blinked, not understanding.

Anko just shrugged. "Let people close and they can hurt you, or die and that hurts even worse. But, no, he avoids that, and having effectively no close friends or love interests... it's pretty amazingly plain that he lives in the past as much as possible, and that is the redoubt of someone who cannot take the life they've got today. Since he is notably lacking in most problems others might retreat in the face of, he's chosen to do so not because today is bad, but that he feels yesterday was better."

The special jonin watched leaves blow by as they swirled in the breeze. "That is the course of action of a coward. A real man would face up to what he's got and work to make it better. Lost your girlfriend? Fine! Move on. The next one you get may even be better. Lost your best friend? Make another. Mentor? Well, they all die eventually. Move on. Everything in life is change. If you can't deal with change, you can't deal with life. And his lack of training, either for himself OR his team, is yet another symptom of his inability to face the present. He isn't trying to improve what he's got, he's too busy reminiscing about what's over and gone."

She snorted ruefully. "I can't tell you how many times I, or another of the jonin, have wanted to beat the tar out of him and tell the lazy nin to grow up. It's been, in my mind, far overdue. I've lost people closer to me than Kakashi ever has, and he's got no excuse for wallowing in self pity over it... how many YEARS later?"

The dark haired lady turned her attention back to her student. "Yes, I've lost people I loved. Yes, I've lost close friends. Yes, I've even lost family and what happened with my mentor makes me wish he was dead. It hurts, and you grieve for a couple months or so and then you GET OVER IT!"

This conversation got interrupted by Kiba's cry of triumph over being paired up in the next fight against Naruto. Anko's student turned away from her cut short lecture to see that almost half of the genin on the balcony had been staring at him as he'd been tutored by Anko.

Naruto shrugged. They'd get over it on the next reset. Or actually... he gave a feral grin and jumped off of the balcony.

They wouldn't! Because he was going to beat Kiba today!

I I I

Naruto looked across the floor to his current nemesis. While Kiba hadn't put him through nearly the grief Orochimaru had, still, it was the dog user at present who was holding him back.

"Don't think I'm going to go easy on you," Naruto taunted his opponent.

Kiba snorted disdainfully. "Don't make me laugh." Kiba's dog familiar yipped in agreement from atop the boy's head.

"Begin!" the head examiner cried, slashing his arm downward before the fight could start without him.

I I I

The fight had been brutal.

He still recalled Kiba's mocking words, "You think no one's ever used a stink bomb on my family before, Uzumaki? I could smell you carrying those bombs before we even went into the forest!"

Then the dog user had activated a 'flash protection' jutsu that kept him safe from sudden overpowering smells. Naruto guessed that the dog user hadn't felt he'd needed that the first time they'd fought, when he hadn't been carrying any ninja gear except a few shuriken and kunai.

So, yes, Kiba had known about his whole arsenal, about the smoke and bombs, especially the poisons, but also even his kunai and wires. It had to be awesome to have such a nose. The guy had to be hard to surprise by virtually anything.

Well, anything except a fart, but biologies are working all of the time, so unless you'd had beans for breakfast and were churning them out reliably, those could catch an Inuzuka off guard.

That had upset Naruto, who'd begun to use explosive tags. Not just a few, but a lot. He'd set them off knowing he'd get caught in the blast zone, not even caring about the damage he'd received, as it would all get better anyway.

The building had come down, but he'd won the fight. Only, it hadn't been the explosive tags so much that had done it.

No, Naruto had started to use Body Switches to pull other things into his place just when Kiba was about to hit him. He'd started off with stones and logs, but pretty soon he'd gotten creative and Kiba was punching at him only to suddenly hit a very surprised head examiner, or Kakashi, or the Hokage.

In the face,

Hard.

Several times.

Naruto repeated those switches over and over again. Then he'd gone a little nuts, and, using his wires, had grabbed Sasuke off of the witness balcony and used him as a mace to club at Kiba, missing more often than not, but still very satisfied to be smashing the Uchiha about like a mace, smashing apart the walls and even injuring that big stone statue some.

Sakura had called out fierce objections, only to get caught by more wires and added to the fun. Maybe her face would look normal someday, if the medics cared enough to fix it, but maybe not.

The Uchiha was never going to be pretty again.

After Kiba had cut his wires, both scared and ashamed of Naruto for his brutal treatment of his teammates, they'd gotten to play 'explosive tag' again, with the dog user this time frantically trying to avoid getting the two downed genin caught in the multitude of blasts.

Kiba had quit after not so much of that, rather than see Sasuke and Sakura subjected to more explosions.

After he'd come down off of his 'don't you dare take my hopes away' rampage, Naruto had been ashamed of himself as well.

Some of the rookie genin had called out objections from the balcony, that it wasn't fair for Naruto to involve so many other people in his own fight, but Naruto's short, curt, "A ninja tool is anything a ninja uses," the head examiner had agreed, around his bruises, and quickly called the match in Naruto's favor.

But it had been immensely unsatisfying, and Naruto was filled with shame over having lost control like that, especially so early on.

He was a better man than that, or at least he tried to be.

I I I

Batting his disappointment in his own behavior aside, Naruto went on to the month between the prelim matches and the finals with the air of a kid in a candy store.

Everything was NEW!

Things were different! People were moving about in ways that he hadn't seen before, saying things that he hadn't heard before! Oh, it was GREAT!

The entire month passed so quickly that he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He caught himself thinking, "When this happens again, I'll..." only to get cut off by the fact that he knew that it all WOULDN'T be happening again!

He was completely unprepared for how quickly those days passed. It was like a dream. One moment he had a whole month before him and the next the third test of the chunin exam was upon him. He didn't know how to deal with it and was shocked that it all passed him by so swiftly.

So, sooner than he would've believed, he was there in the arena, with Anko there helping him get ready for the final phase of the exam.

Naruto put on his armor and to his surprise it was too tight, constricting and binding, pinching and in all other ways uncomfortable.

Anko laughed at his astonishment. "Whoever made that set wasn't very good. It's too small."

"But it fit PERFECTLY!" the boy protested, not understanding it.

Anko leaned down to poke him in the breastplate. "Maybe. But whoever made it forgot to put in any tolerances. You're twelve years old, kiddo. You grow. You shoot up like a weed, even if you don't notice it. This stuff may have fit when you first put it on but that was how long ago?"

"A month and eight days," he replied exactly, as it had been exactly a month wait since the preliminaries, a week for the forest of death, and a day for the written test, which is the day he'd most often repeated, and so used to make his measurements and design it.

"Hm," Anko grunted thoughtfully. "Still had to have been pretty tight when it was made for you to have so little room for growth."

'Okay' Naruto sighed within himself. That was an obvious blind spot. He shouldn't let himself be too surprised. He didn't grow or change during the repeats, so he'd forgotten to account for it. No big deal. That probably meant all of his clothes and things made for himself and others had the same problems - no room for growth.

Well, how was he to account for a thing he'd never seen? Ever since before he'd started to have these skills, that wasn't something he could witness to account for.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

You know, I never would've believed how HARD it was to write that fight with Kiba. At first I spend probably a chapter and half, or more, building up to it, then when I finally can't avoid getting to it any more I look at myself and suddenly I'm writing about it in the past tense, and Naruto was a jerk about it, which thing I didn't like, nor did I want to do, but didn't know how to avoid.

Then I broke my update schedule to try and fix it, and that didn't help at all. I found myself staring at that scene, trying to will the whole thing to work out right, when I finally realized it wasn't going to happen. It was either move on past it and let the whole thing drop or let the whole story get hung up on that one issue and die, because I was never going to be able to fix it, and I could keep putting it off and putting it off until I lost interest and let the story float off into the 'maybe I'll get to it once again - like, when hell freezes over' category.

Maybe I'm traumatized, I don't know. But the last time I had a big fight scene in this fic I took up a whole chapter on it, spent loads of creative effort, and got like three sentences in reply on that in my reviews. Most of them totally ignored the bulk of that chapter to go to great lengths to tell me how upset they were over a stinking comic relief paragraph tacked onto the end, which really left me feeling unrewarded for my work.

Which probably means we won't be having another big fight in this story, not if they are this blocked. Sorry, I'd love to include them, but if they continue to be like this we certainly won't be seeing another.


	21. Chapter 21

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty One

by Lionheart

I I I

The third test had come. Sasuke had been late, as before, delaying his own match by hours as the sun moved across the horizon enough for Shikamaru to use in his own fight.

Naruto had dropped enough poison gas bombs around Neji to strangle a horse (which was actually fairly easy, an appalling percentage of their body volume was lungs, and those still had to pump like bellows to keep the rest of that creature moving at the velocities they did). Safe in his too-tight armor, the gas had done him no harm because of built in breath mask, so Naruto had won that round with amazing ease.

At least something had gone right.

Much hadn't.

It had been so long Naruto had basically forgotten about the invasion. In an abstract sort of sense he'd recalled it, but he'd failed to plan for it in any meaningful degree, and so that had gone... poorly.

Trying to save the Hokage and stop Gaara both at once without previous planning, Naruto had managed to do neither. Orochimaru had knocked him out quickly with wounds that could have killed anyone else. His clones had stood up bravely to Gaara, but in his advanced demon mode as he was it was all they could do just to slow him down.

The village had been all but destroyed by the invasion forces. Many shops and buildings got leveled, high level ninja destroyed, and the streets littered with debris.

And, on top of everything else, when Naruto woke up under Anko's care outside of the infirmary, there having been no room for him within, he'd asked and she'd been forced to answer that in spite of his performance during the test, and the valuable contribution he'd made to the fight after, the village had elected not to promote him to chunin.

"But... but, WHY?" the blond called out his query in anguish of soul.

Anko sympathized, she really did. But the kid had to be grounded in reality, so telling him everything was going to be alright was a lie, and that left only a colder form of comfort for her to offer.

"Y'know, kid, don't worry about it too much. Chunin tests are as much of a popularity contest as anything. Look at me, why don'cha?" She gave him a self-deprecating shrug, allowing a moment of letting him see a fleeting glimpse of the vulnerability she had on inside, under her 'tough gal' exterior. "I could take almost any jonin in this town, most of them I could beat two or three on one. I could beat half of while them drunk or hung over. But I'm only a special jonin. You want to know why? My old teacher got into some freaky stuff that made himself so unpopular he got thrown out, and his reputation hangs in the air around me like a stink. There's nothing that I can do to get rid of it. People suspect I might've been brainwashed, that I'm a sleeper agent he's just waiting to activate. And you know what?" She shrugged. "I can't say they might not be right. I've got gaps in my memories of my time with him, and that's a BAD sign."

She paused for a moment, considering, before popping him a genuine smile, albeit a slight one. "But probably not. This whole invasion was the sort of thing you use sleeper agents to prepare for. We only survived by a thread, so this was a finishing move meant to kill us. If he didn't activate me for this then I'm almost certainly not his pawn." The lady stretched, and gave him a sad smile. "Hey, you gotta find your comfort where you can."

She sobered instantly, and informed him, "Still, this town hates him and everything about him. Now you've seen good reasons as to why."

The former apprentice of Orochimaru turned her gaze off into the distance and heaved a big sigh. "But you know what? That's nothing compared to the Kyubi. However much they may hate and fear my old teacher, that doesn't even make a dent in how much they hate and fear it."

"Her," Naruto absently blurted out while his mind was still caught up in the shocked horror of having been denied promotion after so much WORK.

"Huh?" His teacher found herself thrown off track.

Naruto tapped the side of his skull. "The demon fox is in a coma just now, and it wasn't too hard to slip inside the bars of her cage. So, while checking over the thing's wounds I lifted up the tails, just to see. She's a girl, not like it matters any."

"Okaaay," the special jonin blinked several times, somehow put off by that thought, but she quickly rallied, getting back on topic.

"Face it kid," Anko told him bluntly. "People don't see you, they see the fox. And they hate the fox. You'd need Kage-grade skills to make chunin rank in this town. You're too much like me, surrounded by a hate you did nothing to deserve. In spite of whatever skills I gain, I don't expect that I'll ever have more rank than I do now. I'm amazed they let me get this far, actually. And I suspect Sarutobi had something to do with protecting me from even more blocked promotions than I already suffered. Since they hate you more than they've ever hated me..." she sighed, before admitting a harsh truth to him. "I think you'd better get used to being a genin."

With that, she left him alone with his thoughts.

Naruto was left behind, miserable, until he thought about it a few seconds more. He'd need to have Kage-grade skills, huh?

Well then, he'd get them!

It was almost a relief when he woke up in the morning to face the first test of the chunin exam, all bright and early in a fresh and undamaged town, the Hokage back alive and every possibility once more placed before him.

The boy smiled widely. If being Kage-level was the only way to achieve the promotion he felt would get him out of this time loop, he'd do it! No Problem! He'd wanted to do it anyway, ever since he could remember!

And seeing that battle over again had given him TONS of new ideas!

The boy threw himself into his training with a fervor and passion unknown to him for quite some while. He was going to be Hokage!

Let's see, that meant being stronger, and faster, and he couldn't do that through training. He'd have to have some kind of chakra boost to his body, something like Kiba's family did.

And, come to think of it, he'd need an honest way to face Kiba and win...

I I I

"You!" Naruto threw open the door to the kennel and pointed a finger at Hana Inuzuka, Kiba's older sister. "I need your clan techniques!"

The woman smirked, not pausing in brushing her dog. "Sorry kid, not going to happen. They are for our clan members only. No exceptions."

The boy thought about it furiously for a second, before approaching and pressing himself nose to nose with her. "Marry me."

At this the female dog ninja broke out in barking laughter. "No way! Not gunna happen! Go sniff around someone your own age, brat!"

I I I

"Naruto!" Hana shouted out, awash in pleasure, before surging up off of the couch and grabbing him by his lapels. "Marry me!"

"Of course, I'd love to," he agreed demurely, setting aside the massage oil to take her in a hug, giving a wink to the clones in the background who went on playing soft music in the string quartet they had formed. The clones in the kitchen cooking food pumped fists while those presently designing her outfits amid the scented candles paused to give each other high fives.

"But I wouldn't want to feel an outcast on the inside," he murmured. "I've already had enough of that from the rest of Konoha. So really I couldn't agree unless I was going to be taught the clan techniques."

The older woman dragged him down to enjoy a fierce, animalistic kiss full of fire before releasing him just an inch to proclaim proudly, in a low growl, "One of our bitches just had a litter of pups. She'd a good bitch. You can get a quality familiar out of her lot, who were just going to be trained up as general replacements anyway. And I'll start teaching you the rest of our techniques tonight."

"Tonight?" The boy feigned surprise, as he was allergic to delays and wanted things NOW whenever possible. "Why not right now?"

"Because we're going to be busy," she declared, dragging him back down before the startled boy could even yelp.

The two then began a make-out session that put her scent all over his body, marking him clearly as 'her property'.

I I I

The boy had discovered that water techniques were now coming to him more easily than most others. Part of the reason why was easy to guess, as his primary form of chakra control training lately had been that ANBU-level river thing, soaking the water with his chakra.

Well, he'd finished that book now, and the suggestions it gave were few in specifics, but wide in generalities, bunches of theories but little practical value - which made it no wonder it was still on those shelves while the others had been checked out.

Still, theory was good for something, and Naruto knew just what he wanted to do. There was a great deal more wind around Konoha than there was water so he planted himself atop the Hokage monument and began adapting that same river exercise to the passing winds, filling them with his chakra so he could watch those patterns as they dispersed.

Not about to be tied down to any one idea for long, the next day he was also sitting on rocks, letting his chakra flow out of him into the ground, seeping into every cavity, vein and crevice. It didn't move like water or air, but there was so much there, minerals all reacting in slightly different ways to his chakra infusion, that there was much to learn.

The day after he was sitting atop of one of the town's power transformers, allowing his chakra to seep out along the electrical lines and listen to the flow of that kind of energy as it got transmitted along.

That left only one element uncovered and to his surprise he found that one the easiest of all. He'd been troubled over how to do that same thing without getting burned, as in every other case he'd had to be actually touching the energy, or very close to it, to perform the exercise.

No. No problem. It was initially scary, and at first he'd been all prepared to have clones pull him back, but once a fire was completely infused with his chakra he could influence it not to burn him anymore, convince it to send its heat elsewhere, and by doing so not get scorched or set ablaze.

And that discovery kicked all of those exercises up to the next level.

Soon he found himself adjusting the air currents in the wind in minor ways, then he began to do the same with water, and when he turned that to the power lines, well, things got interesting, as he learned he could tell it not to go one way over another, and by doing so cut off power to entire buildings.

Earth was harder to figure out an advanced exercise for, until he began to think of Gaara's sand. While he couldn't move it the same way as the red haired vessel, when he dribbled it out of his fingers he could let the grains fall in very specific ways, so that one mineral fell to one side, and others to their own. In this way he could play in a sandbox and by dribbling the sand out of his fist create a mound of sand particles, with one side of it a glittering pile of tiny metal dust motes that had been part of the mix.

Starved for progress, and seeing it at last, the boy would send clones out every day to do each exercise in a handful of different places so he could do all of his elemental training simultaneously. Some clones would be placed up or down the river, others feeling the wind from atop the Hokage monument, buildings, or trees. Earth was in plentiful supply, although electrical power was not over-abundant. However, he could make as many fires as he wanted.

By sending a handful of clones out to do each element simultaneously, he did gain some benefit out of doing the multiple training thing, too. Some would be on Earth, others Fire, and so on, so that each day he'd gained progress on all of them, and how welcome that progress was!

His chakra control began shooting higher, until he was back to where Ebisu would call him "Decent, almost average", which opened up his whole range of battle techniques for use in stressful situations again!

All thirty of them, plus those that Anko had taught to him.

Better still, while he had his limiters on, he had close enough to good control to qualify for much better medical knowledge and skills.

So, having his chakra powers back, Naruto also sent clones out to use and master them, using those same principles and exercises that Ebisu taught him for perfecting his basic three. He didn't just send out clones to use his battle jutsu either, but also his camping techniques and the essential eight, so he was effectively training to perfect each of them all day every day.

No need to waste time, and being free of the infinite reset loops, even just having been out into that extra month, had resparked some of his creativity that had been smothering under the weight of infinite repeating sameness.

What's more, having chakra control sufficient to use his advanced special powers in battle without those fragile limiters, he was no longer trapped in a single week and a day.

He faced both of the Gaara and Kiba fights just to prove to himself that he could. That he could now beat those two, who'd previously been all but insurmountable obstacles to his progress.

Deciding he still wanted to play with his new and better equipment, Naruto wore it to the fight against Kiba, and the dog user, as he took his place opposite him, called out as before, "You think no one's ever used a stink bomb on my family before, Uzumaki? I could smell you carrying those bombs before we even went into the forest!"

"I know," Naruto replied calmly, even confidently, gazing evenly at his friend. "I knew you could smell everything that I possess, from my poison packets to the number of kunai I'm carrying and what dye I used on my clothes. Just as I know you've got an almost symbiotic relationship with your dog familiar, to the point where you have begun to share each other's traits. I know that you can understand his barking. I know of your man-beast clone technique, and allow me to say that I admire your execution of it. I know you typically begin fights using your Beast Mimicry technique, which grants you extra strength and speed above your already admirable levels. I know that you are very loyal, Kiba, and I believe that you truly do deserve to be a chunin - however," the blond boy gave his friend a shrug. "Unfortunately that's not going to happen. Not this test, at any rate. But I have confidence you'll pass the next one. You just had the misfortune of facing me this time."

At Kiba's stunned and somewhat truculent stare, Naruto gave an earnest shrug. "Sorry, bad time to tell you I once dated your sister, I guess. She was pretty vocal about your clan's techniques."

The dog user's face turned to one of cold fury, and he pounded one fist into his palm. "You're so going to pay for that, Uzumaki."

"Begin!" the head examiner cried, slashing his arm downward before the fight could start without him.

Instantly Naruto formed a single seal, when usually it called for several, and shouted out, "Earth Flow River!"

The floor of the examination room instantly turned to deep, thick, slick mud, on which Kiba had trouble retaining his balance, slipping about frantically for a moment before plopping face first into the mire.

He looked up with a mud covered face, sunk up to his wrists and knees in the muck and about to brag that he could fight just fine on all fours, and that it was a much more stable position that wouldn't mind a little mud, but Naruto, who'd been standing above the surface of it on pads of chakra, had already completed his next seal.

And he vanished.

Startled, Kiba started looking around to the sides, up the walls, trying to see or even smell where the attack was coming from, but he only had a fraction of a second, and it was all to no avail.

The next moment Kiba, and his dog Akamaru, were both sucked down into the ground, leaving only their heads above it, and the mud instantly hardened, turning back to a stone floor again.

"Inner Decapitation technique, used along with and after the Underground Move," Naruto explained from where he was now standing safely behind and out of reach of the helpless dog user and his pet. Walking around to the front, he squatted down to apologize. "I'm sorry, Kiba. You truly deserve to win. You are strong, and I believe our village needs you as a chunin. Frankly, I think your whole team are due for promotion. However, you got me as an opponent, and you just couldn't beat me. But I hope we can be friends."

Naruto reached into his pouch and pulled out the scroll of earth techniques he'd taken from Sasuke's apartment. Placing it on the floor before Kiba's face, he said, "This is the scroll I got my earth techniques from. I'd like to let you borrow it for as long as you like." He gave an apologetic shrug to the other boy. "I'd even be glad to help you master them. Think of it as kind of a consolation prize. I can't give you chunin rank, but I can help you on your way for next time - not that I think you'll need any."

The whole time the dog user had been glaring around in shame, trying to avoid meeting Naruto's eyes. Finally he gave a sigh and nodded, turning his face back to Naruto's and matching his friendly grin. "Alright. You've got a deal." But then his face turned stern and he growled. "But if you hurt my sister!" He left the threat dangling.

"Furthest thing from my mind!" Naruto told him honestly.

After all, while he could perform those clan techniques now, he still needed tutoring on how to more fully master them!

And dang but if a sense of smell made a thousand times more powerful by chakra wasn't one of the most useful espionage tools EVER! How had anyone ever kept any secrets from these guys?

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!" the head examiner declared, and only then did Naruto draw his friend out of the entrapping earth, slap the scroll into his hands, and rub shoulders in the clan way so they bore each other's scent.

Kiba was surprised, but soon started grinning, and the two boys left the stage laughing together, dog yipping excitedly along beside at their heels, none of them interested in remaining to see the other fights.

A month of being friends with Kiba and training and dating his sister was also an astonishingly good experience. Naruto was not used to loyalty, he'd never HAD any... well, except from Hinata, but the Inuzuka clan were of a different sort. As bold as he was, as unashamed of their opinions as he was, and every bit tenacious enough to turn and growl at the whole village for treating him wrong once they'd begun to accept him as one of their own!

That was a totally new experience for him!

And one that he resolved to do often.

Although, when the invasion came, as it did once again at the end of that month, he was far more conscious of the losses Kiba's family took, and it hurt him to see so nice a family so heavily reduced. So he put that on his list of things to fix on future trips around.

Once he figured out what he was going to do about the invasion, that is. In his excitement over effectively having a family for the first time ever, he had forgotten to plan for that again.

I I I

It was going to take one heck of a plan, Naruto decided, as Orochimaru once again met him in a hurricane of fists and feet, instantly pulverizing his defenses and smacking him down off of the building to smash on the street, spurting blood as he impacted and creating a small crater in the road, ending his resistance for that reset in spite of his tremendous healing ability.

The trouble was clearly centered around the snake sannin. The guy was TOUGH! Unbelievably hard to beat, and ruthless as well, perfectly willing to launch mass attack powers over populated areas, or use large summons to cause havoc and disperse his clones.

No, this was going to take one heck of a plan, indeed!

I I I

"Hey Gaara!" Naruto called out as he met his fellow demon container on the floor for their prelim round against each other. "Before we start, I just want to make sure to tell you that whoever wins, I still want to stay friends."

The demon vessel from Sand nodded gravely, although not saying much of anything. Ever since the two had met and had dinner together in the forest, they'd been inseparable. Gaara had done everything short of using his sand to carry Naruto around like a teddy bear since that day one week ago.

Acting on a strange impulse, so glad to be having and using those again since the influx of more time had changed his situation around, Naruto decided that one extra cut short reset wouldn't hurt him, and decided to try out an experiment to test the other vessel's reactions.

"Gaara! This exam is important to me. Since I was a little child my dream has always been to become Hokage, the leader of my village, and to do that I must advance through the ranks. Still, the job would be meaningless if I could not perform the duties, and a Hokage must treat this village as his precious people. A strong ninja will always put the needs of his precious people before his own, and your happiness is more important to me than this promotion! If you want, I will forfeit this fight so you can continue on to the real match!"

The demon container of Sand stood motionless for precisely four heartbeats before turning to face the examiner, saying softly, "I concede."

Naruto popped over across the floor to clasp the other demon container in a hug. "Thanks Gaara! Hey! Does this mean I can date your sister? I'd have to two-time her, since I'm already officially dating Hinata, and maybe Tenten and Hana too. But would you be alright with that?"

"HEY!" Kiba called from up in the stands, objecting to having his older sister involved in this strange and bizarre deal.

Gaara paused, his brain short circuiting as it discovered whole new paths he'd never explored before. The hug was certainly one, no one had ever hugged him before, not that he could recall. The other?

"If you marry my sister, you would be my brother-in-law?"

"Yup! That's the way it works!" Naruto grinned widely. This felt SO much better than almost blowing up Kiba with those explosive tags! Why hadn't he always done it this way? Joking was so much more fun than moping!

Oh yeah, jokes had to be fresh, and freshness had been rather lacking in his life up until lately with that whole 'punch through to the extra month' thing.

"And, as family, you would spend more time with me?" Gaara whispered softly, although the whole room could still hear.

"Uh huh! That's the deal! Marry your sister, stuck with you for life!" Naruto shook his head in pretend grief.

A giant hand of sand formed out of the ground and plucked Naruto up, holding him fast, but without crushing pressure. Temari shrieked when the same thing happened to her, and Kankuro almost reflexively began to pray for her poor soul. They'd always feared someday this would happen. Gaara had gone nuts and was... carrying the two out the door?

"Hey!" Kankuro looked over the railing to peer down. "Where are you going?"

"To find a priest," Gaara answered insistently. "Naruto must become my brother at once. There can be no delays."

"WHAT?" Temari called out in shocked surprise, only to quiet down as Gaara shot a glare toward her. As her own eyes sought out Naruto, she gulped, yet resigned herself to it. This wasn't too bad, at least she got to live, and she'd liked what she'd seen of this kid from Konoha. They'd gotten along great together during the week they'd known each other.

There were worse fates for a kunoichi than to have her husband chosen for her. I mean, that's what happened to the girls in infiltration all of the time!

And those were the lucky ones!

The unlucky ones... well, prostitutes heard way too much information from way too many sources not to have a few kunoichi inserted into those ranks, but that was pretty much the worst fate any aspiring ninja could ask for. Not only was the job horrible, degrading and disgusting, but between the diseases and risks of discovery, they tended not to live for very long.

Compared to that, a ninja on an insertion mission was GLAD to marry a total stranger! Not only was she far more liable to live longer, but the duties were more pleasant and there were plenty of cases of her learning to love the guy.

Considered in that light, the wind mistress counted herself lucky, as this was a guy she already knew and tentatively liked. He seemed decent, and with the way Gaara was going on, she'd not even have to leave her home town to do it! One of the big stresses of long term insertion missions was leaving the environment you grew up in, most often for life, never to see any of your friends or family again.

She shot a wan smile to her psychotic brother. "Okay. It's a little sudden, that's all. I was just hoping for more warning, but he seems like a great guy!"

Folding his arms to rest comfortably atop the fist of sand that held him aloft, Naruto pointed out before they'd left the door, "So long as we're doing this, you'll want to get the others too. Hinata is the kindest person you'll ever meet. You'll like her. And Tenten can be really fun to hang around."

Temari developed a twitch in her left eye.

Gaara paused on the threshold. "If they marry you, and you are my brother, then they become my sisters too?"

"Yup! It works that way!"

Hands of sand grabbed the other two girls too.

"Oy! Just so you know," Naruto said, kicking back comfortably in the fist of sand. "Some of our priests might object to marrying me off to Hinata and Tenten, too!"

"Then I shall kill the ones who refuse until we find one who does not." Gaara stated flatly, once again heading for the door.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Ah, much better. It flows once more, again like water.

And I do have to admit, I've been shorting Naruto on his amazing ingenuity and often enough on insight as well. My flimsy excuse in the story was that the boredom set in and reduced his creativity somewhat for the duration. But my actual reasons are different.

Yes, the boy would've thought of stink bombs rather quickly. Yes, he could and would have adapted or even created his own techniques by now for use in some of those situations. He'd probably even have solved most of his fights LONG before I showed him doing so.

My reasons why he did not are simple. I couldn't write that story.

Naruto is chaos incarnate, and trying to pin him down long enough to force him to both learn and grow while developing in previously unexpected ways was already as much as I could do at this reduced level. Once he had his full wits about him he'd be unstoppable. But the story would also be too chaotic, jumping around and fragmentary that it would be impossible to read without massive confusion, and more effort than I am willing to put into it.

As far as the girls go, I do have to apologize again, but think of the genre. The standard approach in any Groundhog type repeating situation is to go out and try all of the girls. Naruto is NOT doing that! At least not deliberately, but his prankster nature and reduced sense of consequences is leading to jokes or situations that are more than a little questionable.

It's not that he is a bad boy, only a very bored one.


	22. Chapter 22

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Two

by Lionheart

I I I

"Oy! Just so you know," Naruto said, kicking back comfortably in the fist of sand. "Some of our priests might object to marrying me off to Hinata and Tenten, too!"

"Then I shall kill the ones who refuse until we find one who does not." Gaara stated flatly, once again heading for the door.

"No need!" The Hokage called out before they'd left completely. "No need to slaughter our priests. I agree with Naruto, most would resist, but you have no reason to go seeking them out. I can perform the ceremony here. I have that authority as Hokage."

"He can marry us all at once!" Tenten shouted out in disbelief. Hinata had fainted with a rosy blush, and a happy smile gracing her face, while Temari held a completely fake and plastic smile on hers, but knew better than to risk objecting, as disagreeing with Gaara was death!

"As the last member of his clan, and holder of significant personal property, he can do so," The Hokage agreed, before smiling softly. "A law brought in to place to protect advanced bloodlines, made more general on the objection of several significant, yet non-bloodline carrying, clans intending to preserve their techniques and rapidly rebuild in the face of catastrophe."

"Significant personal property? Doesn't he live in a slum?" Ino asked from her place up on the balcony observing all this transpire.

"Naruto has recently come to possess a much more significant estate," The Hokage demurely avoided mention of the Uchiha properties by name, since there were sure to be clans and members of the council who'd object. They couldn't do anything, Sarutobi had been fully within his rights to give them away, but the longer it took them to find out any specifics the fewer noises they could make and the less headaches he would have over the issue.

"One moment, please," Naruto effortlessly escaped Gaara's Sand Coffin technique using a seal-less Body Switch with a stone lantern, and with his hands free formed a seal for his Shadow Clone Technique.

"Alright," he pointed at his new army. "You know what to do!"

"Right!" Several hundred Naruto's pumped their fists in the air and instantly afterwards sprang apart to pursue those tasks. Half of them vanished in Body Flickers transporting them all of the way across town to the former Uchiha compound, where they immediately began to work on clothes at a rush pace. Others vanished into the forest surrounding Konoha, putting Ino's lessons on flowers to use, they sought out clusters of wildflowers he'd seen on his wanderings before and harvested them into tasteful, even artsy and extravagant wedding bouquets.

Other clones began to cook up a storm, knowing that it wouldn't be ready in time for the ceremony itself, but hoping to catch the reception afterwards.

Almost as soon as they were gone clones began to reappear bearing small and simple items that made it clear what they were up to: a vase of flowers, a bridal veil to get tried on and adjusted, before getting taken back for more embroidery. Several clones bearing carpentry tools appeared to set up a stage and altar, going about their business with an appalling efficiency that clearly impressed Shino, the bug user, who was up on the stands.

As first seconds, then minutes, passed, the effects began to multiply and the chamber got transformed. Drapes of cloth hung from overhead, making the chamber festive. Candles glowed in crystal globes blown only moments before using handy craft jutsu Naruto had been inventing on his own. Stands of cut white marble appeared, and then a band arrived.

Sooner than anyone present could believe possible the gowns were being brought in and the brides escorted out to change. That those tailors were also clones of the groom was not lost on anyone.

With the suddenness of a rainstorm appearing out of the clear sky the set had changed completely over from a dreary, unadorned chamber to one of the most festive anyone had seen. There were filled punchbowls and candles, trays of light snacks, soft music being played and the festive decorations went from rare and hard to find wildflower bouquets all of the way around to expertly cut crystal glass, and more seemed to be arriving every moment.

Most of those present had gone into shock, although most of the women who hadn't were now completely googly-eyed.

The brides appeared in a flurry of bridesmaids, who were also, coincidentally, all female Naruto clones, dressed in matching yet flattering dresses that supported beautifully arranged lace and ribbons (with limited embroidery, as there was little time and it was a time-consuming art) yet were tastefully downplayed just enough and served only to magnify the beauty of the brides - who'd just been through spa treatments, a bit rushed it was true, and now glowed from within, filled through and through with inner feminine glory.

Temari was beginning to enjoy herself. Marriage to a guy who could do all this? Oh yeah! Even if her brother hadn't insisted she'd have been tempted, make that SORELY tempted!

Even if the guy was technically an enemy, with their Kazekage deciding to break their treaty and go to war. Aw, man! How was she going to break THAT secret to her future husband?

Life could be so unfair!

She nearly dropped her wildflower bouquet when the Naruto who was with her whispered in her ear that he could guess what she was worried about, and not to worry, as he already knew about the planned invasion.

Wow! Talk about marrying a NINJA! Did he have effective skills or what? And wealthy from the looks of all of the stuff arriving. Plus kind, couldn't forget that, not bad looking...

Temari's fears and uncertainties began to settle as she realized without a doubt that she had just probably won the husband lottery on a blind choice.

Tenten was lost in a womanly wonderland, having all of the glory of the finest wedding with none of the stress and hassles of preparing it. Naruto knew her tastes better than she did herself, and all of it was prepared to her liking. It all felt so wonderful she doubted any bit of it could be real!

She had to be dreaming all of this! But if that was true, she didn't want to wake up!

Hinata stood like a girl lost in wonder, standing alone in a snowstorm of lace and ribbons and silk floating down around her to arrange themselves about her body and the room. What had her attention fixed was the Naruto before her, standing there with a smile on his face, gently holding her hands so she did not faint once more.

Others would talk of the beautiful ceremony, of the rapid pace of the arrival of the expensive decorations as if that was a miracle. There would be some comment on the food, the light snacks and such, or even the meal occurring afterward. But while she was present for all of that, and technically saw it all, the only thing Hinata would consciously remember was Naruto, standing there holding her hands with a gentle smile on his face and love, love for HER, in his eyes!

That alone made it the most beautiful and wonderful experience of her young life, a defining point that changed her very existence.

I I I

"Tenten Uzumaki" the girl tried her new name out for size, trying it on for fit and flavor, and in the end deciding that she hadn't done so bad as far as married names go.

And she'd scored a jackpot on the ceremony!

She even got to help her sister-brides open the wedding gifts! They had WEDDING GIFTS! How was that even POSSIBLE?

Not that she was complaining, as she liked it. She liked it very much!

Hinata was lost in a haze. Tenten could've sworn they could've poured ice water over the girl and all it would've done is gotten the dress wet. She was so oblivious to everything going on around her that if her dress caught fire it could burn the entire gown and she wouldn't notice her nudity or the burned skin until the Naruto she was holding hands with and gazing into the eyes of let her go.

Not, Tenten amended to herself, as if that was a bad thing. The shy girl had definitely gotten the husband she'd always wanted, if her behavior was any indication. So deep was their rapport that it looked like they were communicating directly soul to soul.

The weapons user turned away, blushing and more than a little envious.

Shaking herself out of the envy over Hinata loving their husband more than she did (although she planned to, and expected she'd find it real easy!) the girl turned her attention back to the ring on her finger.

It was a simple gold band, plain and unadorned, the wonder of it was he'd been able to produce it at all, sized for her finger no less!

Although she herself was not aware of it, in future repeats of that scene she would be gazing down at steadily more complex and artistically beautiful pieces of jewelry as the accumulated knowledge of all of the jewelers in Fire Country got added to a boy who was already their premier metallurgist, only to be used as a starting point for future experiments.

Jewels appeared in increasingly complex cuts and variety. Stones got tried that were larger or smaller, set in various ways intent on flattering each other. Loops of gold and silver etching made their appearances. Her dream ring appeared, and then became more than she'd ever dared, or even thought to dare, to dream of, until once again Tenten was staring at a simple ring, plain gold, and adorned only with silver inlaid runes etched delicately into its surface, resting upon her finger.

That was a wonder all on its own, as the weapons mistress concentrated a tiny bit of chakra into the seals etched into the ring and it expanded into a gorgeous panoply of the jeweler's art, wirework in delicate tracery and gems lovely beyond anything she could ever have imagined. It took her breath away, but was far too fancy to wear except for very special occasions. But that was alright, as with a tiny touch of her chakra the special parts once again sealed themselves in the storage runes carved in delicate tracery upon her wedding ring.

It was perfect, even practical!

She couldn't even begin to conceive of anything more!

With a week of warning to prepare, future repeats of that wedding got far more intricate and dazzling than the original. All of what was there before got better, and with a dazzling degree of artistic sensibilities even more elements began to be added.

Illusions of soft and misty waterfalls fell silently down the walls betwixt the curtains. Rains of flower petals followed the brides, cascading across them, adding emphasis to their own ethereal beauty, yet vanishing the instant they touched the ground. Soap bubble cascades lifted in columns through the air, and to the soft music of the band got added an increasingly expert choir with several different voices of transformed Narutos, who sometimes sang so soft you were barely aware you were hearing them, and then other times raised their voices high in thundering carols rejoicing over the glory and beauty of the brides and the joy of that occasion until it seemed the very stones below the building shook with those hymns of praise.

The food began to increase in volume and improve in quality as Naruto did what he always did when he had a goal before him and devoured all of the cooking skill it was possible to acquire, out of any source whatsoever, then experimented until he could make an eater weep with joy.

Desserts began to appear that stood as tall as Ino would if she were on the tables, and as beautifully decorated as any of the brides. They bore a decent resemblance to the blonde girl from Konoha as well, but then she'd been one of Naruto's more frequent artist models, so was a good base to work off of for making dancing nymphs cavorting about forests and other such woodland scenes lovingly dressed out in cake and chocolates.

Some of the ninja present decided to steal them to keep for themselves.

And yes, Naruto began to work on scents and perfumes for the brides. He had girls to take care of now, and they needed their pretties! The boy spent more time perfecting a thousand different recipes of scented bath soaps alone than he'd spent learning all of embroidery.

Embroidery got added, other jewelry appeared, matching bracelets, necklaces and earrings, finally to include delicate jeweled tiaras and gem studded belts, until the brides shone like glittering ice, always emphasizing, never detracting from or distracting from the beauty of those gorgeous girls.

And they were gorgeous. Naruto had never yet abandoned an art half way, and he went the whole beauty spa route until he could've made any girl seem a princess in disguise, even while still wearing her usual clothes.

Of course, to Naruto, his brides needed no such enhancement. They'd always been that beautiful to him. He was just helping others to see it. And the seals of storage on their wedding rings improved until all of their jewelry could be made to both appear and vanish into the ring at will. Then their dresses also, so they could return to their beautiful bridal gowns with but a thought.

As the boy explored more into creating new seals to serve this useful and highly flattering function, he made it so those girls could change from their casual ninja attire, to fully armored battle outfits, to their wedding dresses to ordinary day wear with just a thought and pulse of chakra through the ring. And the wardrobe capacity got expanded from there, to include modest swimsuits and other outfits they might need, as well.

Ignorant that her future weddings would make nobility stew in envy, or not believe those rumors at all (and as things got steadily more fantastic, it was more of the latter and less of the former), Tenten tore her gaze from her wedding ring, and all it meant, to go mingle among her guests.

It was a surprisingly dull crowd, most there being too stunned to find themselves at this occasion to be talking much, having been handed formal wear and shoved in closets only moments before. Her teacher, Gai, was there standing around and chatting in the amazingly well cut tux and opera cape in which he'd given her away. In his new crew cut the man looked surprisingly normal, and as he caught her gaze he shot her a 'Nice Guy' grin and thumbs up. Blushing, and not sure why, Tenten turned her attention away to go find some other part of the crowd.

Gaara, as best man, had managed to avoid killing anyone. That was positive, although it didn't mean she wanted to go stand with him just now. There'd be plenty of time for that later, as she gathered he'd be over often.

Lee was looking around for Sakura, while Neji had been drafted to hand out moist towelettes at the end of the buffet table, so her teammates would not be helpful.

A conversation drew her over to one of the walls, where stood a lifesize portrait of the wedding itself, showing an astonishing amount of detail from a very flattering perspective, in an excellent artistic arrangement.

It was the perfect thing to remember this always.

Two people were standing before the painting, discussing it, and as Tenten drew closer she could overhear, "... his latest painting. I love this artist's work. Did you know, in his earlier works he still emphasized drawing. You could pick out the outline and contrasts of tone and form..."

Drawing near enough to see over the shoulders of the crowd, Tenten blushed once again on realizing that she'd overheard two of her husband's clones were discussing their own work while a third one was still finishing it up.

Almost laughing, Tenten turned herself around to finally see the looks of envy being shot her by the other village girls and broke out in loud guffaws.

Here she hadn't even known she'd had a boyfriend this morning and she was being envied at her wedding! Oh! It was too rich! The girls standing there, all jealous, it was too funny!

One of the Narutos arrived to guide the suddenly hilarious bride out to where she could recover her composure in private. She kept him so she could kiss him senseless. As, if her peers were going to get jealous over her catch, she was at least going to enjoy what she had!

I I I

Sarutobi had stood watching those preparations appear as if by magic in an ever increasing awe of his little friend's hidden talents.

The Shadow Clone army that descended on the chamber, turning it from a plain room for holding battles into a festive one draped in a glorious display of cloth fabrics and wedding items, was a sight to behold.

One of his own worst enemies was getting stuffed on cake and desserts and dancing with an old flame and having a WONDERFUL time!

Naruto had that affect on people sometimes.

In all the history of Konoha, in all the ninja world that he was aware of, no one had ever used that technique quite like Naruto. For anyone else it was too costly to use in anything short of a desperate situation, for spying or for combat. But the multiplying force could be applied to labor as well, he just knew of no one aside from Naruto to ever do so.

An army of carpenters, decorators, tailors and musicians indeed! Sarutobi knew of the ability to magnify one's learning through the use of clones. What was obvious to him was that Naruto had been using his unique ability to create hundreds, or possibly even thousands, of them to good effect.

Possibly for some time. Sarutobi had not been watching. Nor had Kakashi, from the looks of it, although the legendary Copy Cat had taken one of the larger cakes and escaped with it early on into the festivities.

Obviously the orange clad boy had been learning, and just as obviously, he was no impostor. It would be like lifting the Hokage Monument to have anyone else try and duplicate the boy's unique ability to create so many hundreds of clones!

He himself was Hokage, and wouldn't care to try.

Nor had the Hokage missed the boy's pink haired teammate flee out of the building, tears streaming down her face, and he believed he'd caught an anguished cry of, "It could have been me! That could have been me!" before the door had completely closed behind her.

Ah well. It was a strange, almost paradoxical, yet true proverb that "You don't know what you've got til it's gone," that applied especially to young people and their romantic troubles.

Not that the young had a monopoly on troubles.

Sarutobi sighed. The life of a Hokage was filled with many painful necessities, although this latest one seemed especially poignant. He'd never had to send brides into combat while still wearing their wedding gowns before.

But they'd now had several hours for the festivities, around a ceremony he'd initially suspected would take less than a minute, and he really couldn't delay the exams any further.

So the old man clapped his gnarled hands once to bring himself attention, then again much louder to be heard over the dancing music played by the band. Finally he walked over to the conductor, another Naruto (somehow he was not surprised), and got him to silence the music.

As the dancing ground to a reluctant halt, Sarutobi interjected in a loud voice. "I am sorry to interrupt this special occasion, but we came here originally for a quite different purpose. One I propose we get over with before you entirely dance the night away. Some of us, unfortunately, have to get up in the morning. Disturbing, I know. But if someone were to clear away that drape, I would like to restart the chunin exam preliminaries, and I can't see the scoreboard to know who is to be fighting whom."

Hayate Gekko, who was the special jonin in charge of this stage of the test, put down his dessert plate and wiped crumbs from his fingers, intending to go see to that himself, but a couple of Narutos got there ahead of him and began to lower those decorations out of the way.

As the dance partners cleared the floor, people tried to recall where they'd been and what they'd been doing before the party started. Chunin hopefuls standing around in formal wear began to feel around in their tuxedo pockets for the kunai they were sure they'd remembered to put in there, while the kunoichi earnestly wished for a few moments to change out of their ball gowns and back to more practical fighting attire.

Kiba began to wish that he hadn't spiked the punch.

"To recap for those who might have forgotten," Sarutobi explained, to get things under way as soon as possible. "We have had only one fight, that being between Gaara, of the village of Sand, and Naruto of Konoha, and I must say that I have never seen a battle end so amicably before, none that even come close. However, sadly we must interrupt the joyous celebration to finish out the tests as required. Hayate, if you would?"

Brushing the last few crumb off of the front of his ruffled dress shirt, the special jonin straightened the tails on his tux, coughed delicately into his hands to clear his throat, and called for the next match to be selected.

The board began to flash through its supposedly random sequence.

The brides returned a trifle late from side rooms, each guided by her own Naruto, one who often had incompletely wiped smudges of lipstick still visible or staining his collar. Nor were they the only couples to return so, several coming in a rush to get back before a match got decided that might get them to forfeit by non-attendance.

Eyes drew wide and gasps of breath got drawn as the next match appeared.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Yes, it's a cliffhanger, albeit a very minor one. I don't expect you'll have to wait very long to find out what happens, do you?

As for those who question Naruto's interest in civilian skills, its primarily so I can do over the top chapters like this one, as I think they're fun.


	23. Chapter 23

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Three

by Lionheart

I I I  
Author's Prequel: Just to avoid some confusion, Naruto has not actually repeated the wedding day scenario even once, just yet. I did flash forward a bit to show you what he would be doing on future repeats so that I did not have to go through that whole scene over again to show those ideas. But so far he is still very much on his first iteration of the wedding day.

So that means I've still got room to surprise him. And he's so interesting when he's surprised!

I I I

Eyes drew wide and gasps of breath got drawn as the next match appeared.

Then the crowd burst out laughing uncontrollably.

Confused, Sarutobi looked around to see what it was, and instead of what he'd intended to appear on the board, the next matchup was going to be between himself and a bunny rabbit, to see who became a chunin.

Odds were rather heavily favoring the bunny rabbit.

Seeing Naruto's clones standing to either side of the scoreboard, grinning like loons, Sarutobi permitted himself to be amused. It was not subtle, but then he'd not been looking, either, distracted by too many other events.

Obviously, at some point Naruto had learned the minor lightning technique for altering the 'random' setup. Interesting, although that opened up the possibility that the cheeky boy had CHOSEN to fight against Gaara, as the Hokage himself had not selected that fight in any way, shape or form. He had intended to put the Uchiha up against the chakra drainer, yet someone with subtle skills had overridden his chosen matchup.

Come to think of it, it could not have been Naruto. Subtle had never been one of his traits, and Sarutobi had not been sufficiently distracted before the wedding celebration to have missed the boy's no doubt clumsy efforts to change the matchups to one of his own selection.

So who was it? One of the jonin, perhaps?

Orochimaru, hidden among the crowd as the jonin instructor of the Sound team, who Naruto hadn't gotten around to killing in this reset, smiled softly.

The orange clad genin had frustrated his plans to test the Uchiha out in the Forest of Death by befriending Gaara and traveling with him, so to take out that frustration on him, by sending him to certain death in a fight against Gaara, had seemed to him only reasonable.

Only the blond haired boy was proving to be a slippery one to get subtle revenge on, having not only gotten Gaara to concede, but getting the demon vessel from Sand dancing with the pink haired one and stuffing himself on desserts and having a wonderful time.

No, Orochimaru realized then that between Gaara's befriending the boy, and then Temari marrying him, the Sand Siblings were now perhaps too close to the boy from Konoha to be relied upon to destroy his home.

So it was time to go seek other options. The invasion could not be delayed, after all, and Konoha must be destroyed, in spite of how much he'd enjoyed those desserts, or the dancing with old acquaintances.

They hadn't recognized him through his disguise and the old boy had to admit he'd had a wonderful time himself. Perhaps, after destroying the village, he could kidnap the boy to get him to host his own future parties in Sound?

Orochimaru had to admit, he'd initially stared around the room, reptilian eyes wide. The blond brat (who was becoming more interesting by the minute) had somehow managed to transform the main floor of the tower in the Forest of Death, which was about as dreary as they came, into THIS!

'Kukukuku!' he chuckled in his thoughts. 'Perhaps, in addition to the Uchiha, I should take this other brat as well. Then he can do my nails, make me outfits, and make sure I look all around GORGEOUS!'

For Naruto, learning that lightning jutsu had been worth a minor make out session with Anko. Obviously she knew the technique, since she was one of the head examiners and had probably done the whole process several times, taking the lead on different portions of the exam.

So, no. It had definitely been worth it to kiss her in exchange for the technique. Even if he'd had to kiss her a lot.

Kakashi chose that moment to come back, slightly blimpy and with chocolate stains on his mask. He probably would've enjoyed that cake even more if the artwork hadn't been wearing a dress, but Naruto wasn't going to have nude art at a wedding, especially his own, and wouldn't have displayed Ino that way without her knowledge or permission in any case.

Actually, probably not even then. The more he respected women and trusted them the less he liked to see other people ogling them naked. It was like they were robbing the girls of something precious he couldn't quite describe.

It occurred to him then that he hadn't used his Sexy technique for a very long time, and it was a subconscious choice based on that reason. Then, like a bolt of lightning striking his brain, the boy recalled that using that was how he'd convinced the Toad Sannin to train him that first time, and his reluctance to use the technique since then had been one of the reasons he hadn't yet figured out a way to get the old pervert to train him again!

Then the boy got stuck in a moral quandary around the question of: did he actually want the guy's training if it came at that price?

Looking at his three brides, Hinata, Temari and Tenten, the boy decided that they were worth protecting. VERY worth his protection! He'd never broken a promise yet, and part of those wedding vows had been very binding, very powerful promises to look out for, provide for and protect those girls!

So, yes, as the only person he'd be degrading by using that technique to scam some extra training, it was probably time to seek out the toad guy.

Who, he noted, was still stuffing himself at the buffet table, having arrived sometime during the party, drawn by the rumors of a multiple bride wedding, gotten stuffed on desserts and danced with old flames while having a wonderful time.

Sasuke glared around, having to admit, if only to himself, that the dope threw a great party. The Last Uchiha had stuffed himself on desserts, danced with a few fangirls, and had a wonderful time, even though he chose not to show it.

Perhaps the dope wasn't completely useless after all? After Sasuke got his revenge on Itachi, he could use the dead last in hosting his future parties for him as he went in search of a suitable bride to help him rebuild his clan.

Shikamaru had been dragged out to dance with Ino while Choji had stuffed himself on cake and desserts. But overall the team had to admit they'd had a wonderful time, even despite Shikamaru finding dancing 'troublesome' and Ino wishing that she could've been one of the brides.

Naruto must like her alot if all of those cakes and things had been shaped like her, right? And those OUTFITS! Any man who could hold a wedding like that on no notice had her interest, her very intense interest. But the CLOTHES!

She would've jumped him early on if she'd known he could sew like that!

Only now he was taken, and very thoroughly taken at that, so oh well. She'd had to settle for scratching her 'I am a female, give me ROMANCE' itch by dancing with her lazy teammate, who barely moved his feet.

But for all that, it had been a great party overall.

Ino decided she'd have to find out where the new... couple? Quadruple? Whatever. Where they lived so she could stop by with a gift and maybe feel out how Naruto felt about catering and stuff for her future parties.

And her marriage too, if she could ever find a suitable groom.

Not a few of the kunoichi there had similar thoughts to Ino. There was nothing to get women worked up and excited over having more weddings like having been to a good one.

It stirred something primal within them, and Konoha's couples would be plagued over the next month by ladies frustrated that the guys weren't playing along well enough with their 'let's get everybody married' game.

Nevertheless a great deal of matchmaking went on that had nothing overt to do with the chunin exam fights.

I I I

Smiling, Sarutobi indicated to the Naruto clones they would not be getting away with such an easy trick again and they cleared off, getting away from the sign.

The Hokage stared across the floor at what he felt had to the real Naruto, well, he had to be one of the ones standing with the brides, anyway, thinking. It had been a part of his original plans to face off Tenten with Temari, but sending two brides to try and injure or even kill each other on their wedding day while still wearing their gowns seemed to be in incredibly poor taste, so he couldn't bear to do it, not only for those previous reasons, but he could tell that Naruto had figured out that the random selection board wasn't truly random at all, and he didn't want to damage his relationship with the boy over such a thing.

Trouble was that left him juggling everything else at the last minute. Those two couldn't be made to face each other. But then who? Perhaps the easiest way would be to split up another of those planned fights so they'd unwittingly switch partners.

Yes, that would be easiest. He even had a pairing in mind to use. The Haruno vs Yamanaka matchup could be split up and divided to give both new partners without disturbing his plans in the slightest.

Triggering the 'random' board once again, the gathered genin watched, rapt, as it decided some portion of their lives and futures.

Hmm, from the way Naruto's face turned white he did not approve. The rest of the genin were not laughing, so this was not a prank on his part. But why should the boy be so distressed over the next fight? It was only going to be Sasuke against...

"Next Match: Hinata Hyuga vs Yoroi Akado," Hayate called out officially as head examiner.

Sarutobi felt cold. that was NOT what he had intended! Not at all! But the old man could see clearly, Naruto was not behind this, but neither was he... so, who else was manipulating the test fights?

At least that explained the Gaara vs Naruto match. It hadn't been chosen by either of them either. Any of the other genin messing this up seemed unlikely so that left the jonin instructors as the next most likely possibility.

The question now became: Which one?

The Hokage's senses began to probe the crowd.

Naruto inhaled to shout, "Hey! There IS NO Hinata Hyuga anymore! She is my wife, and thus Hinata Uzumaki!"

The girl nearly fainted with joy over hearing that name.

"Overruled," Hayate continued before the Hokage could stop him. "She was under a different name when the system was programmed, that's all. It still means her."

Exhaling a long breath, Naruto turned to whisper desperately to his beloved, "He is a chakra drainer. He can suck all of your energy out by touch. Your martial arts style depends upon forcing your energy into his coils to back them up and block them, but I don't think that will work on him. Do you have any other techniques besides the Gentle Fist style?"

The Hinata of old would have shook her head in tender terror, unable to answer verbally for her fear. That fear was still there, but so much reduced it was like a different Hinata, one with confidence overlaid above her fear that put her hand over his and said, "I'll be alright," and walked out onto the stage floor.

Nonetheless, Naruto's insides were twisted with concern for her.

Sarutobi was more than a bit upset himself. In the first place because the Akado boy was among the weakest of those genin present, and he'd been hoping to save him for a fight against the Uchiha. In the second place he was mad because the boy was known to be cruel, and the gentle Hyuga, or former Hyuga, girl was probably the one person present that the one-trick boy could beat. So not only would he be allowed to progress when it would be far better for Konoha if the boy remained behind, but he would be likely to do serious injury to the girl to no purpose, just to show he could.

While Sarutobi had been willing to let the girl's cousin beat her, there was far more purpose to letting the branch house genius work out some frustrations than in this meaningless bout.

Of the two now facing each other across the floor, Sarutobi would far rather the Hyuga heiress be the one to advance to the final test. She, at least, would have a far greater chance of presenting herself well, even if only in defeat. And between Naruto and her father stood a far greater chance of receiving training in the month between, while the other boy seemed to be dangerously confident in his abilities as they were.

As pathetic as they were. No, this fight was a waste of everything involved, and the only thing it could do would be to destroy a bride's confidence on her wedding day to no point whatsoever.

"Hinata, wait!" Naruto called out, rushing out on the stage floor to give his wife of only a few hours a kiss on her pale cheek. "For luck!" he told her, before releasing her hands to retreat back to the side where everyone else waited.

Sarutobi blinked. Had he just seen what he'd thought he'd seen? No, that was not possible. It would've taken a master of the arts.

Unless, Naruto..?

The Hokage settled in to watch this fight with more interest.

"Begin!" the head examiner cried from his place beside the Hokage.

Yoroi, the chakra draining boy, stood gloating a few moments, waiting for the pale haired heiress to make a move. The words he said were unimportant, but across from him Hinata was unmoved, only assuming a fighting stance.

In the crowd, several eyes narrowed. Neji in particular noticed, but also Shino and Kiba, who'd been teammates with Hinata for months.

In the end Yoroi got tired of waiting for Hinata to make the first move and charged ahead, fists glowing with his absorptive aura. He swung several times and missed each one, as Hinata had elected to dodge rather than block. But soon enough it came about that the much larger genin got enough use out of his larger reach to plant a hit on the girl.

She vanished instantly in a puff of smoke.

It COULD have been a Body Flicker. There was no way to really prove that either way.

But, no. What had really happened was Naruto had switched out the real Hinata with one of his clones during their brief kiss. The clone, transformed to look like her, had put on as much delay as it could before being dispersed. However, that was enough, and the real Hinata made her appearance on the top of the giant stone statue in the room.

And she was in full armor, Naruto having helped her into the set while the clone bought them time.

The girl threw a handful of kunai. Her accuracy was regrettable, but that was still sufficient, as each of the five she'd thrown had each been bearing an active explosive tag.

Then the kunoichi drew her sword.

Injured, Kabuto's teammate came out of the smoke coughing and bearing significant damage from the explosions, only to find the previously shy girl was bearing down on him with the full knowledge that her beloved believed in her and wanted her to win.

Her strike was clumsy, but it was enough. As three feet of steel sank into the boy's belly, quite by accident as Hinata hadn't been able to stop her rush in time, the girl surprised herself by blurting out half of Naruto's words as he'd handed her the blade, "Let's watch him drain this!"

"Drain this!" she squeaked, a moment before she realized that sounded like trash talk.

"Winner: Hinata Uzumaki!" the head examiner called out calmly.

And you know what? Hearing those words, that marvelous name applied to HER made Hinata almost forget all about having another ninja struggling on the end of her sword.

Medics came and pulled him off almost immediately, but Hinata could hardly even see them for all of the Narutos around her cheering.

I I I

Sakura forfeited her fight by not being present for it, sending Sasuke on to the finals without fighting.

Another thing convincing Sarutobi that he was being outmatched at board manipulation, as he'd never have selected such a thing. Sending teammates to fight each other was needlessly destructive to the unity Konoha needed, even when said teammates were not present.

And Naruto would also never have done such a thing. His look of horror as the match came up was proof the Hokage hadn't needed of his innocence.

Subtle signals had been passed around, until Sarutobi had checked with each of the Konoha jonin present, and each had silently proclaimed their innocence through expressions.

That left the playing field of who was tampering in this very thin. Almost a handful of foreign jonin, though none in particular stood out.

Then the third match to come up this evening chilled his blood.

"Next fight: Tenten vs Temari!" the head examiner called out.

The Hokage met Naruto's horrified gaze and subtly shook his head. He could see understanding dawn in the boy's eyes that his 'gramps' was not behind this.

The two brides were VERY unhappy to be facing each other, walking out with many backwards glances to their husband, until Naruto strode out himself, taking each one by the hand and facing the Hokage in between them.

There was mischief in his eyes as the boy shouted. "Hey, gramps! These fights are until only one side is able to continue, right?"

The Hokage drew in a deep breath. "That is correct, Naruto, unfortunately. For what it is worth I am truly sorry."

The new husband took both of the girls around the waist and stood there with a huge, impish grin. "What are you talking about, gramps? There is only one side here! A wife and her husband are one legal entity. Through me, each are united with the other, and there IS only one side here! So we win!"

Though there were many holes that could be poked in the boy's reasoning, the Hokage chose not to, glad for the excuse. So instead he smiled. "You are correct in this instance, Naruto. Tenten, Temari, you both win, and both will advance." He turned to Hayate, convincing him not to argue. "Go on with the next test."

Not understanding the exception being made, but willing to go along with the spoken and unspoken orders in spite of that, the special jonin nodded.

Up on the balcony, Orochimaru was not smiling. Having rigged those tests, first for Gaara to fight that frustrating blond, then intending to humiliate each of the boy's wives in turn and hopefully mar their collective wedding day with some tragedy, only to be frustrated, he was not amused.

Still, he gathered his chakra, intending to cause another sort of tragedy.

Instead of that, however, Naruto turned around and shouted to everyone, "Thank you all! There will now be a five minute recess for those of you who are inappropriately dressed for combat to change into more appropriate clothing and outfit yourselves with whatever weapons or equipment you may require. Please speak to one of the caterers if you have any special needs to be addressed. Once again, thank you all and the dancing will resume in twenty five minutes for those who have concluded their matches. In the meantime, drinks and the buffet are being moved outside for those not involved or who have already passed."

Seeing Sarutobi endorse this, and calling for additional ANBU guards, the disguised snake decided enough was enough and left the premises under guise of going to the outdoor portion of the party.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

I find my time available to work on this has been vastly curtailed, so forgive this chapter for being a little rough and unpolished. I still kept to my schedule!

To those who have generously offered to beta or write scenes for me, I thank you, but I don't see how anyone could keep up with me!


	24. Chapter 24

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Four

by Lionheart

I I I

With the conclusion of at least their portion of the preliminary fights, Naruto realized that he'd backed himself into a corner. Despite his general unease over the subject of sex, there was no way he could keep himself out of the honeymoon festivities with a full month to go between the second and third exams. And, having passed the preliminaries, there was going to be no reset to save him from the consequences of joking with Gaara this time.

Especially if... Aw, man!

If they were going to be sleeping together, as in 'sleeping' together, as in spending the night in the same bed asleep, then there were certain secrets that he couldn't hide anymore.

As in his foxy accessories.

He'd gotten massive progress on his Transformation skills. He could hold up a Shapeshift all day without hardly thinking about it. But no sooner did he go to sleep than he sprouted ears and a bushy tail.

Considering how heavily he slept, and how much he liked sleeping, there was no way he knew of to wake up before the girls did and slip out stealthily and silently before they noticed, even to just reapply the change.

So that meant his immediate priority was to get them home to where he could break the news in relative quiet and isolation, and see how they'd react.

I I I

"You certainly don't act like a groom about to start a honeymoon," Temari observed, choosing to tease him about his nervousness rather than to let it hurt her. Actually, she felt quite reassured by the boy's hesitance, as he'd seemed so much on top of everything else so far that she'd begun wondering what use she could be to him. Well, aside from as a sex object, that is.

The girls had all been very impressed about the Uzumaki estate, formerly the Uchiha property. He'd had clones there since mid afternoon fixing it up for a residence for him and his brides, and the Uchihas had never had it so good, as all of those lessons learned on his apartment got put to use there, with his skills as a blacksmith and carpenter saving him from borrowing money to do it, too, as he could make nearly everything himself.

Now they'd all gone quietly to separate rooms with their own grooms. Temari knew, objectively, that only one was the real Naruto. However, for the life of her, she couldn't figure out which without hitting one. And, given that, she'd put some serious thought into what was the difference between him and his clones. She'd asked him about that, and found that they knew what he did and he knew what they did, they all had the same memories, experiences and skills, while reacting just as he did. So, really, all he'd been doing was being in more than one place at a time.

And she could handle that. It was better than the alternative. Three brides on one groom sounded awfully awkward to her, but this way he actually outnumbered them, rather than the other way around.

And given how much ability he'd shown so far in pampering them, that was an equation she was happy, even enthusiastic to take!

Weighed down by his own unhappiness, the boy turned to take her hands in his own and looked her seriously in the eyes. "Temari, darling, can I trust you?"

The kunoichi sobered instantly, seriously considering his question. Among ninja that was a very rare thing to ask. Trust was a heavy responsibility and most were glad to avoid contact that close with their fellows, when their vows as ninja could cause them to break that at any time. As a result, they had very few of the really close friendships, preferring casual acquaintances.

At least they did it that way in Sand, where the Kazekage could order an uncle to kill a nephew. She didn't know about Konoha, but assumed it to be the same.

The girl swallowed her own nervous reaction. No one had ever asked that of her before. Being Gaara's sister, she'd been almost as lonely as her brother, and couldn't really trust him as he might kill her at any time.

So this was a first.

Then she thought about it. They were man and wife, and she found herself somewhat surprised over how much she'd been looking forward to exploring that relationship with him.

Considering their makeouts earlier, and how those had affected her, she was quite interested to know what else he was a master of.

Nervous, the kunoichi asked him a question herself, "Can I trust you?"

He nodded without any hesitation, filling her with both relief and shame that she had ever doubted him. "With my life."

'Okay!' the kunoichi nervously tensed up. That was WAY more than she'd ever been expecting. What he'd just said amounted to, 'Even if keeping your trust kills me, you can trust me.'

Not a halfway sentiment!

Taking a deep breath, the new bride from Sand gave him a nod in return, and assumed as brave a smile as she could before saying, "Yes, you can trust me." She waited a moment, before impulsively adding, "With my life."

He broke out into a relieved smile, but one that didn't wash away all of his tension just yet. What could be the cause of him being so nervous after what she'd just said? Temari wondered. Sure, ninja had been known to break such oaths, or lie about them, but what cause had he to doubt her trust?

Before she could wonder more on what there was wrong about her, Naruto gave her reassurance by blurting out the real issue. "I've got a problem," he told her. "A secret so big, that... well, the village has always hated me for it."

The girl from Sand quirked an eyebrow, relieved and restored to most of her confidence now that she knew the issue wasn't some flaw he found with her. In a teasing tone of voice, she told him, "It's not much of a secret if your whole village knows enough to hate you for it."

"They know I'm a demon container, but that's only part of it. Your village hates Gaara because when he sleeps the demon comes out and rampages. I hold the Kyubi, and my seal has always been much stronger, never letting the demon out, but before he got sealed into me, the Kyubi ravaged much of Konoha, and they've never come close to forgiving me for that. They blame me for all of the damage, even though her being sealed into me was what stopped all of the losses from getting worse."

"Okay," Temari nodded, following him so far. It really wasn't too different from what Gaara had had to put up with, but that bit about his seal not having the same weakness as Gaara's was very reassuring.

She'd been about ready to go screaming off into the night before he told her that. There just wasn't any way she was going to be sharing the same bed as a man whose demon came out to play every so often!

But that wasn't the case here, so good. Temari felt there wasn't any secret so bad that he could reveal it now and still scare her.

"So, if that's only part, what is the rest?" she prompted, when he'd paused.

Looking up, he met her eyes again. "A long time ago, someone very precious to me got killed. I didn't have anyone else, really, and losing her hurt more than I can describe. I couldn't hurt that man who did it, so..." here he took a deep breath. "I let the demon out. I got it back into its cage so fast no one even knows it was released, and the Kyubi got so injured by that experience that it can't hurt anyone right now. It got so wounded it's been in a coma since then. I don't think, even if I let it out, it could hurt anyone right now."

Temari actually grew more and more pleased as he told her this news. She frankly couldn't see a down side to any of this. "So, what's the secret?"

The boy adopted a very self-deprecating grimace. "While it was out, it did some 'decorating' as it liked to call it."

And he released the shapeshift, popping out his foxy accessories.

Temari stood for a moment blinking at those new additions. Below the level of her conscious awareness, a struggle took place between two very different reactions. One was shock, the other acceptance.

The shock never stood a chance. For one, she was a ninja, and they had to deal with more insane conditions than some civilians could believe all of the time, watching out for enemies hiding in shallow puddles or hanging off of walls was just part of the business. For another, they were cute and she was a girl, and girls go all squeally about cute and fluffy animals.

But underlying it all was the knowledge that a shocked reaction right now would be interpreted as rejection by the vulnerable youth before her, and that would damage their marriage.

Gaara would literally kill her if she blew this marriage. So that was out.

Responding almost at once she gave him a big hug and laughed. "This is what you're all worked up about?" She played with a tip of one ear, it twitched back out of her way, so she settled on stroking his tail. It was long and furry. She could just picture herself with this wrapped around her on cold nights.

Naruto was stunned by her reaction. "You... you aren't mad?"

"Mad? Why would I be mad?" the kunoichi touched one of those ears again, just to see it swivel out of the way again. The hair on it was really soft.

"Uh, I dunno. It's just the villagers have tried to mob me a few times over this."

Temari snorted, as if to show her thoughts on THAT! "Well, then Konoha is stupid. They've forgotten what a real demon is. If you were anything to fear they wouldn't DARE mob you! And if you aren't then they've no reason to."

The boy stood there silently processing this new thought. Odd, it had never struck him that way before.

"So," Temari asked him, stroking one ear just to see it react to her. "Is this some kind of a bloodline? Are our kids going to look like this?"

Naruto blinked, surprised again. "You know? I honestly have no idea?"

Chuckling, she led him off to their bedroom. "Well, then let's find out!"

Inwardly, she was aglow. He'd NEEDED her! She'd already validated her place in this marriage and they hadn't even taken off any of their clothes yet!

In spite of being so incredible, he was hurt inside, and she could fix that!

She was a success at her gender, and that alone made her bolder, knowing she had a place in this relationship, and therefore her world to come.

I I I

"So, what's the secret?" Tenten asked of him. After all that buildup, it had better be a pretty good one!

The boy adopted a very self-deprecating grimace. "While it was out, it did some 'decorating' as it liked to call it."

And he released the shapeshift, popping out his foxy accessories.

Tenten had been feeling very insecure in her marriage. I mean, what had she to offer to him? But now, seeing how terribly afraid he was over how she might react to this, she suddenly saw her place.

"Wow!" she gave him a hug. "So these work?" she played with the tip of one ear.

Twitching it reflexively out of the way of her seeking hand, he nodded.

"Neat!" she called out, hugging him again. "So you have a bloodline! Why aren't you as popular as the Uchiha?" She asked him brightly.

"Huh?" the boy blinked several times at her, not making the connection.

The girl snuck close, trying on his tail as a feather boa around her neck. "Well, yeah. This is Konoha! We LOVE our bloodlines! Why didn't you tell any of us you had one? This must be pretty rare. I've never heard of it before. Are you the last one to have it?"

"Actually, I think I might be the first," he stumbled across his words, then scratched his head. "And I don't know if it's inheritable or not."

"We should find out," she whispered sultrily in front of one of his triangle ears, causing the boy to blush down to his turtleneck, and making her giggle naughtily at his reaction.

"No, really," she reassured him, still testing out and exploring the softness of his furry pieces. "Think about our history. Our clans are what made this town powerful, and you gotta admit, our town is in love with power. I mean, the Uchihas were able to come here because they'd been thrown out of their previous country for being disloyal thieves who robbed their own fellows of their priceless techniques. But they came here and we not only put up with them, we made them nobility! Similarly with the Hyugas, although they were seen as spies who couldn't stop peeping we also made them nobles. Even our lesser clans are only less than that because their bloodlines or secret jutsu aren't as powerful. So," she teasingly wiped the tip of his tail across her face. "What do these do?"

Naruto, too busy hugging her with tears in his eyes for this easy acceptance, took a moment to gather himself to answer her question. "Oh? Well, the ears are really great at picking up far off sounds accurately. I haven't found out a use for the tail yet."

"You'll want to start exploring that," the weapons mistress told her husband seriously. "I mean, the ears are great. Hearing things far off puts us in the top tier of clans already, we'd be kinda on a level with the Inuzuka dog users if we'd worked out more ways to use this, though. Do you think you could learn to throw things with that tail? Or use a sword or something?"

"No thumbs. No fingers, either." He shrugged, weak from relief over her reaction.

"But you can wave it about however you want?" She asked again, only to be answered in giggles as the tip of his furriest appendage ticked her face. Capturing it for more petting, she told him, "Okay, that answers that one. You'll want to try to find a way to use that in combat now. We'll never be more than a great clan of scouts until we have our own fighting style, and a tail that can help in that would be a big start. Do you know of any techniques you might be able to use with this?"

She buried her face in the furry appendage and wiggled it about.

Naruto had been thinking, spurred on by her question, and had begun smiling in a wide and prankster way, "Well, I do have Lightning Whips. If I could make one of those appear out of my tail I could lash it about as a third weapon."

"You see?" Tenten looked up at him lovingly, her face framed by his orange red fur. "A third weapon is exactly the sort of advantage that could be a good edge for us! Most ninja can only wield two, so their styles only allow for blocking or dealing with two in return. By being able to use three, we could take out many ninja more experienced than we are. A good set of senses and an edge at close fighting is all that's ever made the Hyuga great. Believe me, we don't love them for their personalities! Well, except for Hinata, but she's an exception, and acts nothing like the rest of those stuffed shirts."

She rubbed her face in his fur again. "Hmm, I wish I could have a tail like this. It's soft, and so warm! Does this come with anything else?"

Responding to that question required no thought at all, as it had caused him near infinite embarrassment over having been thrown off all of his abilities. "Yeah. It came with more strength, speed and a humongous chakra boost."

Tenten actually laughed. "Don't sound so depressed about it!" She told him brightly, actually enjoying herself and now certain of her utility in this match. "That's actually a jackpot as far as bloodlines go! Strong and fast make up most of the difference between what ninja live or die! And chakra capacity is a big one, too. The more techniques you can throw, the more you matter and the bigger a difference you can make!"

"Yeah, but it destroyed my chakra control utterly," the boy confessed to her, now finally relaxed enough to return the hug.

Tenten stopped being playful for a moment. "So, you can't use techniques? Are you like Lee in that?"

The boy laughed into her shoulder. "No. Well, at first I was, but that was only because I was throwing way too much chakra at everything. But I learned how to overcome that."

"And you remember how you overcame that?" she asked him carefully.

"Yeah," he told her, suddenly worried now she seemed so concerned.

To her this was important. "So," she ventured, wanting to be absolutely sure of things. "You could teach your children how to overcome that, if they have the same problem?"

Naruto gave that thought a moment, as he'd never considered it before. "I think so," he ventured, still carefully considering. "I've never taught all of what I know to anyone, but I remember all of the steps, and I've taught my techniques to people before, so it shouldn't be a problem."

Instantly her joy came surging back and she redoubled the force of her hug. "So I don't see what the problem is! You've got a couple of golden abilities that might be a bloodline set! I mean, think about it, what does a ninja do that couldn't be helped by more speed, strength and chakra? If you can keep their extra capacity from ruining their control forever, our kids will be some of the greatest ninja of Konoha! We've got some advantages similar to two of the best clans of our village! There are the extra senses and a fighting edge like the Hyuga, and some of the strength and toughness of the Inuzuka! The Kitsune Clan will be one to be feared all across the Elemental Countries!"

"I'm actually jealous," she told him, poking his chest and rubbing circles on it. "Now I know my kids will be great, but I won't have the same advantages!"

Now Naruto was the one to be offering suggestions. "Actually," he rubbed the back of his head as he admitted. "We had a class on bloodline theft in my medical studies." He didn't mention that he'd been impersonating another student at the time. "And they said that bloodlines can not only be traced and detected, if they are present, but most could even be stolen! It takes a better medic than I am to do it, but if they can be duplicated by theft, why not donation? I regenerate really fast, so none of the techniques they were discussing would be too dangerous for me..."

"You even REGENERATE?" she squealed in delight, wrapping herself around him excitedly. "How much?"

"Uhm," the boy ninja hesitated, then decided to divulge the truth. "A ninja stuck his arm through my chest once using an assassination technique. It blew a hole through my lung, but I got better."

She froze in surprise, then carefully opened up his shirt. "There's no scar," she said mildly, not sure whether to believe him or not.

"Oh, I never do. Here, let me demonstrate." Tenten's husband took a kunai out of a belt pouch and cut a short, thin line over his arm.

It healed, literally, as she watched with stunned eyes. No scarring at all.

She jumped him. After several moments of fantastic kissing, she told him as they came up for air, "And did it never occur to you to wonder if that ability to regenerate might not be part of your bloodline, too? Think about it! The single WORST fear of all parents of ninja is not seeing their kids again once they start going on missions! Strength and speed and chakra all help, but they don't stop anyone from being unlucky! A stray hit from out of nowhere has taken out some of the best ninja ever! So the ability to regenerate from wounds is a killer! No, that's not what I mean, I meant that they'll be coming back from more missions than anyone else might have hopes for! Our kids won't DIE as often as some others, which means we get to keep our family, even after they start becoming active duty ninja!"

There came several more minutes of frantic and grateful kissing and snuggling. "So, can you transform into animals, like a real fox?" she teased him on their next trip up for air.

"I've never tried," he admitted, ashamed at not having explored that.

"Never thought of the stealth opportunities, huh?" she toyed with his shirt, which she had never rebuttoned.

"Nope. Never had," he admitted, inwardly resolving to correct that.

"You and I," she told him, sitting up to help him finish taking off his shirt, "Are going to be exploring many things." Gazing down on his bare chest lovingly, she huskily gave him her final words for the evening. "Starting with each other!"

I I I

"So, what's the secret?" Hinata asked of her husband, shyly. She'd not even given the briefest of hesitations over offering him her trust.

The boy adopted a very self-deprecating grimace. "While it was out, it did some 'decorating' as it liked to call it."

And he released the shapeshift, popping out his foxy accessories.

Hinata stood, absolutely frozen, for one moment before glomping on to him with all of the power her small body possessed, wrapping her entire collection of limbs tightly about him while she pressed her face into that furry tail and shouted, "TAKE ME NOW!"

I I I

Jiraiya, toad sannin and spy master of Konoha hopped over the wall of the Uchiha estate that the kid had somehow acquired. The lights were on in parts of the main house, and, the boy having just gotten married that day, there was sure to be some fascinating boinking going on.

He could use that as material for his new book.

Or at least, so he thought. However, he got surrounded by Naruto clones before he'd even gotten close to the main house. It hadn't even occurred to him to check for guards.

"Can we help you?" one of the clones in the lead asked.

"Hahahaha! I must have gotten lost!" the toad sannin declared, wondering if they would really buy such a lame excuse.

"No, you didn't," one of the other clones corrected, before declaring, "You came here for lecherous purposes, intending to act as a peeping tom."

"So what if I did?" the sannin declared, striking a pose. "For I am..."

"A super pervert," all of the clones echoed before he could go into his dance.

"You don't have to take all of my fun out of it," Jiraiya groused, upset at being thwarted in his introduction. Turning aside, he sighed, "Well, if you are going to be like that, I can go get my amusement elsewhere."

The clones had started smirking. "No," the one in the lead corrected. "I think you are going to stick around and train us."

"Why should I?" the sannin shot back, more than a little peeved at their presumption.

"Because of this!" The clones all formed handseals. "Sexy Technique!"

The toad sannin's eyes shot out of their sockets and his jaw dropped open, drooling, as his tongue hung out.

"Yes! YES! But only if you stay like that!" The self confessed super pervert drooled.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Wow! I had more time than I'd expected today, and that was nice and helpful. Because in spite of my expecting otherwise, I haven't had to fight against interruptions all day.

Does Naruto have a bloodline? Well, obviously, what happens with his kids has very little impact on this story, except to make girls more happy to have them, of course. But yes, I have decided, since having overheard that Gaara kept hold of his sand using abilities even after having the demon extracted from him, that the changes wrought on his body by that experience are probably close enough to be called a bloodline, even if they may not be inheritable at their full strength.

Naruto does have an extensive set of changes wrought on him, that's all.

As far as Tenten calling them the 'Kitsune Clan' she was just acknowledging reality, in that people would care more about their appearance than their proper name, and sooner or later adopt that to use as a shorthand for them.

Although, she is ignorant of the full extent of the hatred that Konoha has for Naruto, on the whole. So there yet remain challenges to surpass to achieve acceptance unlike any she has ever dreamed of.

Of course, they could always go to Sand. Gaara would be happy to have them.


	25. Chapter 25

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Five

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto was no longer scared of marriage. He liked this, and was planning on doing it often.

Of course, in later repeats he resolved to do what he could do about getting Hana involved in all of this, because the only way he could find to make it all better was having the Inuzuka clan loyalty mixed in to this.

But, the times he'd been engaged to her so far had actually been on those repeats when he'd fought Kiba. This time it had been Gaara he'd faced during the prelims, and though Naruto had mentioned her during the initial setup, she hadn't been around the chunin exam for Gaara to grab, and without the impetus of a Sand Coffin wedding it wasn't liable to happen this time around.

And that was a shame because, as good as this was, he somehow felt that having Hana involved would make it all better.

He'd have to try it and see.

Because the only thing he could think of that could be better for spying than Hana's nose was Hinata's eyes, and since they both searched for different things in different ways, the combination should be fantastic!

After all, he'd learned enough of the Inuzuka clan techniques to use that nose, and had been quite impressed himself when he'd smelled something he couldn't identify, and Hana had sniffed for about a second before announcing that she smelled it too - and that it was several miles away.

MILES! As in 'walked for several hours to get there' sort of range!

The wind had shifted about to bring them a scent they never could have seen in person! Of course, the winds were unreliable, but it wasn't as if you'd learn nothing. Every breeze was a news article when you had that nose!

And, if he got Hana into his little family, they could use it without excuse, as she knew it legitimately, and could share it with him by clan rules, because it was sharable to spouses (and only spouses), but by those same rules he could also share it with Hinata and the others!

Shouldn't be too hard to fix, though. Arrange to give Hana the full spa and clothing fitting early on and she'd propose to him, ask her to come to the exams to cheer him on, and she would. The Inuzuka clan were loyal like that.

Then Gaara could add her to the Sand Coffin wedding!

Ah, and he mustn't forget to check her reaction to the foxy bits. She had a doggy inclination and those two breeds of canine didn't exactly get along.

Hmm, probably best to spring the news after she'd agreed to marry him and begun to mark him as her own, so she had some investment in him, but while she was still high on the pleasure from the spa treatment, so she wasn't thinking too straight or clearly.

He was worried about the fox thing, considering her dog emphasis. But for the same reason he felt sure she'd have no qualms about the multiple bride thing, as dogs out in the wild formed pretty much exactly that arrangement. The alpha male got all of the breedable females that he wanted.

And he'd have no problems being the alpha of his own little pack.

Naruto's ability to plan things through had truly undergone a remarkable upswing as a result of all of these resets. He'd never have gotten anything done otherwise.

I I I

Temari stirred in bed the next morning, wondering 'what is this incredible feeling?'

Then she saw a furry tail before her, tickling her nose as it twitched quietly in her husbands sleep, recalled everything, and pounced upon it, awakening him with a yelp while she cuddled her furry darling. Oh, and she'd deal with the husband it was attached to, as well.

I I I

Tenten woke up wondering where she was and how she got there. This wasn't her apartment, and...

Suddenly it all came flooding back to her, and she saw a pair of furry ears twitch towards her from atop the next pillow over.

She grinned.

I I I

Hinata was in heaven that morning.

Naruto, already being the sum of all that was good or decent in her world, suddenly acquiring a surge of unlooked-for cuteness had been more than Hinata had been able to bear. She'd had to have him.

There could have been no delays.

But, for once in her life, she gotten what she'd wanted, when she'd wanted it. Life didn't get any better than this!

She hummed softly as she brushed her hair that morning, Naruto still softly snoring on the bed behind her. She knew he liked his sleep, but there were limits, and she'd have to be waking him up soon.

I I I

Naruto's fox parts were, perhaps unsurprisingly, very sensitive. Still, as his brides gave him access to their sensitive parts, that in turn gave them the same access privileges to his.

None of them were slow to take advantage of this.

At breakfast, Hinata had jumped his tail and started petting it like her long-lost favorite teddy bear, which was odd, as she'd only just got done cuddling it the moment before.

Still, that had been the bedroom Naruto, and this was the one making them all a hale and hearty breakfast, the tantalizing smells of which had finally drawn her downstairs.

"Good morning, darling," he greeted her with a kiss, as he'd read in the romance books that couples sometimes do.

The girl practically melted.

Luckily there were more clones, or breakfast might have gotten burned.

I I I

Naruto was almost overwhelmed with new things to try. For once, he had more than he could easily do, and somehow felt the urge to hoard it all so he wouldn't run out soon.

But he also felt a much greater desire to master those suggested new abilities as quickly as possible!

Jiraiya had answered most of his questions on the subject of seals, and that had largely demystified the topic for him, breaking through to where he could start experimenting to learn more about their hows and whys.

The books and stuff he'd studied so far had always been 'do this' and 'do that', not the much more useful, 'this does this, and that does that' that opened the doors to true understanding and thus experimenting.

Thousands of clones were all over the Uchiha estate that morning blowing themselves up, warping space/time, getting themselves killed or shredded or blown into their constituent molecules by failed experiments learning all that he could, applying those same means he'd used to master tailoring and the like, ie, try ALL of the options to see what works best!

Their casualty rates were appalling, of course, as failures in seal inscription were far less forgiving than in blacksmithy or leatherworking.

Of course, there was far more to be practiced there than seals! Tenten had given him tons of new ideas, and he HAD to try them out!

She'd been right about the fighting style. Adding a weapon jutsu to the tip of his tail so he could swing it about would be an extra nice advantage to have, so he had several clones out trying to adapt most of his techniques to that, and he wasn't just practicing the easy ones, either. He'd gotten some good results out of trying strange combinations before, so he was not only out there trying to get his Lightning Whips or Fireballs to appear out of his tail, he had clones experimenting to see if he could slap the ground with his fuzzy end instead of his hands when he wanted to raise up an Earth Style Wall.

There were also clones practicing animal transformations. Shapeshifting into a fox went off surprisingly easy, no troubles there at all. So now he was working on other forms, and there he was running into some difficulties. As he WAS a human, so didn't have to think through their biologies, his own body already knew it. And he could do the fox form with ease, probably because of his connection through his little passenger, but he ran into a wall with birds and other animals as he didn't know their internal layouts very well, so couldn't duplicate that, and so couldn't change.

Although he could almost do a dog. It seemed helping out in the Inuzuka clan clinic all those times had been more helpful than he'd thought. Initially he'd just done the clinic because he'd been bored, and it was there. Now he was very glad that he had. And enough of him caught rabbits as foxes that he got a really decent idea of their internal layout really quickly, so was able to start on that change as well.

Actually, while he was thinking about it and had the contract, he did a quick toad, then made sure to do his best to memorize that form for later.

Jiraiya had a short attention span at the best of times, ruled by his glands far more than by his head. To get information out of him was a delicate practice, and the most productive route to mining those veins of knowledge out of him was to tease him with seductive females to get his interest, then ask questions about the topic to get him back on track.

It was a disgusting, degrading and humiliating practice that almost made Naruto wish that he DIDN'T get those clone's memories! Baths were not sufficient to wash away the unclean feeling, even of just having the old letch look at her and WANT to paw her, but not actually getting to! The whole thing gave him a taste for what kunoichi went through on infiltration assignments, and he made a vow right there that none of HIS girls would have to put up with that type of mission!

Well, technically, he guessed one could say that Temari already was, but he then redoubled his initial promise to make certain she enjoyed it.

However, in addition to demystifying seals, they had gotten the toad sannin to let them sign the toad summoning contract again, without which Naruto had sadly been unable to summon any toads in spite of several attempts.

So that was looking good as far as the upcoming invasion went. With Gaara on HIS side, and the ability to summon a small gang of giant toads to deal with Orochimaru's giant summoned snakes... even if the snakes WERE able to beat the toads it was a much more level playing field, into which could be thrown extra assistance as needed.

Naruto was having fun planning this out. Between Gaara and the real him, plus the Hokage, they'd be able to beat Orochimaru when he went after the old guy. Using a few thousand of his clones to blunt the rest of the attacks from there would cost the enemy the advantage of surprise, and also reduce casualties by quite a bit. Then, if the toads could do no more than delay the giant snakes until they'd dealt with everything else, they could send more ninja that way to tilt the balance back in favor of the toads.

The blond demon container grinned. It looked like he could save Konoha!

I I I

Naruto was expecting to be doing the 'bloodline detection and determination' thing on his own, and was already plotting how to sneak into areas where that data could be had, so he could learn those techniques to perform the entire thing himself, when one of his clones reported a small but significant party of individuals at the gates of the compound.

Wondering why the Hokage would be visiting him with such a grim expression on his face, Naruto alerted everyone to let them know in time to get ready, and allowed those clones on guard to lead the visitors inside the compound.

The Hokage was very unhappy, and considering his company Naruto could easily see why.

Hiashi Hyuga had never been on his list of friendly people, but after the boy had learned what he'd said and done to his tender daughter, it was doubtful that he was ever going to have a high opinion of the man. The other members of the town council were not happy people, either.

Not expecting any good news, he sent a clone off to fetch Gaara from where that demon vessel had spent the night.

A quick couple of Body Flickers and an explanation later ("Uh, Gaara, these guys just showed up at our house and look like they could be trying to break up our family") brought an irate demon from Sand there in full battle attire, nor was he in a very good mood.

Staring at the hair trigger psychopath blocking their way into the main house, and the people they were there to speak to arrayed out behind, with clones dotting every rooftop around, the ninja in the Hokage's group realized they were in the beginnings of a battle situation and stopped where they were, spreading out a touch to get fighting room.

Catching the first of the ANBU escort to run for cover in a Sand Coffin, Gaara squashed the man like a grape, spraying his blood all over the visiting party just to make his point before he growled in low tones, "You wanted something?"

Seeing that dozens of Naruto clones had spread bags of sand all around the visiting party, none of the others made a rush to take cover.

Hiashi Hyuga didn't care, striding boldly forward to the front of his group and declaring, "We are here for my daughter."

The man's bloodline was activated. He was no fool, and was ready for combat to spring out from any direction.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, father!" Hinata declared out from behind the two Narutos she was concealing herself behind.

"I command you to come to me!" Hiashi barked out sharply, causing his daughter to flinch heavily at the heat of his angry words.

One of the Naruto's stepped forth and crossed its arms. "Command her as what? You are not Hokage, nor do you have place in the command structure of ninja above her. You've got your own responsibilities, and they do not include either Hinata or me."

"As I am Clan Head, she must do as I wish!" the man spat back angrily, enraged that he was being talked back to.

Naruto was shaking his blond head. "You're head of a clan she's not in. You might command her, IF, she was still a member of your clan. But she is not. Last night she stopped being a Hyuga and became an Uzumaki. This was even publicly acknowledged before hundreds of witnesses. You have no rights to command her."

"As her FATHER, I demand..!"

"Shove it!" Naruto interrupted, uncrossing his arms. "You're no FATHER to her! You're nothing but a bully and a blowhard! You happened to be married to her mother, but she got nothing from you! All of the things a girl is supposed to learn from a parent, she DIDN'T get from you! You're no more her father than that rock over there! You're more of her landlord! And she MOVED OUT!"

Naruto stepped back and recrossed his arms. "Anyway, the rights of a husband trump those of a father, and I say that she doesn't have to go anywhere if she doesn't want to, but especially not with you."

"Actually, Naruto," Sarutobi sadly took his pipe out of his mouth, speaking for the first time in this visit. "As he and his advisors were so anxious to prove to me this morning, Hiashi governs a clan with a powerful bloodline. So he retains some rights to all of its bloodline carrying members, in spite of marriage, according to the laws of Konoha."

"But what if we had a bloodline?" Tenten blurted out. Then, seeing all of those hostile gazes on her, shrunk back.

"She's right." Temari strode forward, and everyone noted she had her fan deployed and ready for action. "Naruto's got one of the most powerful bloodline abilities in Konoha. Surely that makes US a bloodline carrying clan, and gives us the same rights to our members! Since our clan rights would be equal if not superior to theirs, you couldn't do a thing to her."

"The demon vessel has no bloodline," Hiashi snapped, signaling two of his branch house members forward to snag his daughter.

They Body Flickered over to grab her, but were caught instantly in sand and detained, then crushed, their remains spraying out over the visiting party.

"There is no way I am going to allow anyone to put a cursed seal on my sister to torture or kill her at their whims," Gaara growled out.

"Let's put it this way," Naruto stamped, pointing a finger at the party of visiting dignitaries. "I am Naruto Uzumaki, living container for the Nine Tailed Demon Fox. I have been to the representation of its cage inside my mind, and if ANY of you do ANYTHING AT ALL to harm any member of my family..."

He paused to glare threateningly at them. "I am ripping off that seal to let my prisoner out to play with you." He spoke in low and dangerous tones.

Faces drained white among the entire crowd of dignitaries. The Hokage let his pipe fall to the ground unnoticed as his eyes bulged out, never having even imagined that Naruto would ever threaten such a thing, that he even COULD!

Temari snorted at their shocked and goofy looks. "Hey, it's your own fault. You treat him like a demon all of the time, but you've forgotten what real demons are. None of you wimps would ever DARE to threaten him if he was the nine tailed fox you all fear so. So, get it through those little pin heads of yours, either he is the demon, or he isn't. If he is, fear him, but don't ever dare to provoke him. And if he isn't, then..." she shrugged casually. "Beware lest you turn him into one."

Spoken in the utter silence following Naruto's announcement, her words came through with a stunning clarity, as even among the ANBU some had wet themselves at the thought of facing the enormous demon fox again.

After having such a trump card laid down upon their plans, the dignitaries began to reconsider many things, not the least of which was what they could get away with to continue on their current scheme, and of course some plans to destroy Naruto got hauled out of mothballs and revived.

No, that threat didn't make him popular, but it did make them more wary.

Stupidly wary, unfortunately, which meant they didn't truly believe his threat. Fully able to see this, Naruto released his shapeshift.

Several veteran ninja of many years released their bowels on seeing his face beneath a set of furry ears, and with a foxy tail swinging out behind him.

"I think I should mention," the boy growled out almost casually, as he bared his still very human teeth at the visiting party. "I've already got the demon to swear to destroy my enemies for me, and it gave me such nice gifts in return. Do you qualify? Are you my enemies?"

It is impossible to express in mere words the terror that gripped the hearts of most in Konoha over thoughts of the demon fox. It was a colossal force of nature as far as most were concerned, able to destroy anything, and only stopped by their last Hokage at great sacrifice to himself.

A big part of the reason they loved him was for that sacrifice.

Sarutobi had already begun to go through those seals in his mind, should it become necessary. He never would've imagined the boy could've gone from being so loyal to Konoha to threatening her now. But he was here, and that was what he'd done.

But then the Hokage saw deeper, and relaxed inside. The boy was bluffing. It was a good bluff, even an excellent one, but it was still a bluff. He could tell, having known him for a very long time. These others...

Sarutobi smirked inside and decided to play along.

"Alright, Naruto. None of us desire for the demon to be released. What do you want?"

Naruto saw the Hokage's eyes, and caught on that the old man knew he was bluffing. On Naruto's part it wasn't much of a bluff, which was why he'd been able to scare the clan elders and town council so, in spite of so many of them being experienced ninja themselves.

Naruto WOULD be willing to release the demon fox to destroy them if they hurt any member of his family. The trouble there was, releasing the fox while it was weakened so much it was in a coma wouldn't do him any good. One of Hana's puppies could beat it up in the condition it was in now.

So it was a bluff, but only the old man had seen through it, fortunately.

"Nothing much," the boy answered back, dropping his angry pose to let his furry tail swish out behind him. "Just leave me and my family alone, confirm our bloodline and give us the same status as the rest of the powerful clans. Nothing we aren't already entitled to, really."

Sarutobi was nodding, pretending to be grave, but he wasn't. Inside, he was celebrating. He'd never wanted to disturb the young newlyweds on the first full day of their marriage. Not only was it rude, and in incredibly poor taste, but exercising authority solely for the purpose of hurting others had been the poison that destroyed Orochimaru, turning him from a loyal ninja into a missing one, an enemy to Konoha.

Yet that same poison existed in Hiashi and others within Konoha as well.

Having been an unwilling partner to this parade of authority, brought here to put a Caged Bird seal on a newlywed girl, Sarutobi was more than willing to see the purpose of this expedition fail.

He might've had to object or quibble, even call the boy's bluff, if he'd tried to ask too much, but especially after the disgusting display put on by Hiashi in his office, he was more than willing to go along and see the angry Hyuga put in his place.

And it would protect the young man from all sorts of repercussions as well, to have his own status as head of a bloodline carrying clan. Sarutobi even sent for a team of medics whose leader he knew could fudge those results for him. But to the Hokage's amazed surprise, such subterfuge proved entirely unnecessary.

The team of medics called during the aftermath to resolve this standoff did their diagnostics (and Sarutobi noted how intently Naruto was watching them work), and confirmed, without any instruction from him, the presence of not only a bloodline, but an advanced one.

Regeneration, extra strength, speed, and a massive chakra boost were all a part of it. They even confirmed those extra appendages of Naruto's were included, something that caught Sarutobi even more by surprise, as he'd expected those to have been something the boy used a Transformation to achieve in order to strengthen his bluff.

But no, the whiskers, ears and tail were strong genetic traits and potentially inheritable according to the medical ninja.

Quite extraordinary.

Resolving to have a private talk with the boy later, after some suitable interval so as not to disturb their honeymoon further, Sarutobi smirked at Hiashi as they made their exit from the Uzumaki estate, and asked. "So, how does it feel to have the boy achieve equal status with you? As one bloodline carrying clan head to another?"

The look on Hiashi's face was enough to set the Hokage laughing all of the way back to his office.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Not the most elegant of solutions, but then Naruto is rarely elegant the first time through something. Give him some practice, though.


	26. Chapter 26

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Six

by Lionheart

I I I  
Universal Translators: On

Jiraiya and Orochimaru faced each other across the flaming ruins of Konoha, both proud men assumed attack stances, before Jiraiya declared, "The cheese is old and moldy!"

Orochimaru gave a long lick up the blade of his sword, "Into a pig, head I must stick!"

The two of them glared at each other a moment before shaking themselves and declaring in unison, "Bad Japanese!" and going off to kill the author.

AN: You see, that's the sort of situation we are avoiding by my not using any oriental phrases I can't possibly do without.

I I I

The scenery in Naruto's mind was an adequate reflection of his situation. When he'd first been there it had resembled a sewer, dull and featureless and completely miserable, which had been a sad but telling representation of his life back then, underneath the cheerful facade.

And who was Kakashi to talk about seeing underneath the underneath yet be unable to peer through even so flimsy a mask?

Anyway, not long after he'd learned to use the resets to his advantage, things had begun to change in the landscape of his mind. Books had begun to appear in bookcases along the walls of the drier portions as he'd begun to read, and more of them as he'd learned to love it. The water drained out as his hopelessness retreated, and more features began to show up as he learned and gained new skills.

There was a concert hall in there now, with plush seats and gold plated art and everything. He had a woodworking shop with a vast array of tools out of his experience reworking his apartment. Still, it did not come close to being so extensive a workroom as existed for his more developed craft skills for working with cloth, metal and leather.

A small jewelry counter with fine tools had appeared after he had done his wives' rings, and that promised to be expanded soon. The kitchen, once nice, now promised to be both expanded and upgraded also, as did the chemistry lab for mixing dyes where a new section had been added that so far was just a bare floor with a 'Scents and Perfumes to be Added Here' sign upon it.

There was a small hospital within his mind, armed with a vast array of charts and some few medical devices, most of which did not work very well. But the anatomy models of thirty or so women lined the walls.

Art, however, filled the place like a warehouse. Countless drawings and not a few paintings almost covered the walls. Artist's renditions, some crude and clumsy, others masterfully done, with everything in between covered all of the available wall surfaces down there. And around them the halls had begun to morph until the place more closely resembled a fine mansion instead of a sewer. Windows had even begun to appear, showing forth green and cheerful forested hills beyond, representing future possibilities to come.

It was, however, to the dojo where his steps now took him. That place had come into being to represent his ninja techniques and abilities. At first, it'd resembled the sewer so closely one could not tell the difference between them, all dull and featureless and hopeless, even with a banner hung limply from one wall, labeled "Shadow Clone." His one significant ninja achievement.

Now the place was bigger, and countless throwing weapons hung from hooks upon the walls, ready to be taken down and used. To the one banner on the wall had been added many, one for every technique he'd mastered, and some of those banners were more fancy than others. As they had gone from "I barely know this" on up to mastery they went from cheap and wrinkled grey brown paper with dull black lettering and somewhat tatty, on up to some of his best examples, which were his Basic Three ninja techniques, that were expensive cloth of vivid scarlet with gold lettering, and exquisitely cared for.

Body Flicker was as impressive as they, and others were advancing. His Sexy technique, along with his Shapeshift power, made that an even six in gold and scarlet, but his mind's dojo was beginning to be festooned with festive blues and yellows representing less ridiculously perfected techniques.

On one end also stood a trophy case. In there had been one award, previous to his entry into these resets, and that'd been his initial fight with Zabuza. Now there were many other victories symbolized and remembered therein.

Still, the dummy that stood in the corner, a statue of him, wore only a yellow belt, not very high up in Konoha's ranking scale at all, a symbol of his lack in martial arts compared to his other abilities.

But that was okay, the place had come a long way in a short time and was due for more improvements yet.

The boy rolled over in his sleep and continued resting.

I I I

After the visit by the Hokage and the town dignitaries, there was no end of excited discussion in the upper circles of the village leaders, and this quickly spread down the ranks until even the lowest members had heard of the news.

Naruto had threatened to turn the demon fox loose on them.

It had already agreed to destroy his enemies.

Countless people who had felt no fear at all bullying a small boy with no one to protect him wept like little children themselves over the recent threat to their own existence.

On the other hand, news got out that the boy had a bloodline.

Tenten's prediction came true more quickly than she would've imagined, as the clerk in the registry office dealing with the major clans and their abilities gave them the designation 'The Kitsune Clan' on their official registration of Konoha's members with advanced bloodlines.

The man did it more than partly out of bitterness.

Naruto would adopt it as his moniker of choice, wiping out the little fan signs that were all over his new house and property, to replace them with a fox head on a spiral background.

The other clans were not amused.

Naruto had, by then, completely dismantled the Uchiha properties one by one on previous resets, so he knew about all their was to know of their secrets. He'd found the 'secret purpose of the Sharingan' beneath the clan shrine, and was not all that impressed by it.

It was along the lines of "Spread misery, pain and death." Really, what would you expect of a bloodline whose highest powers could only be activated by killing your best friend? They'd created it seek a better yogurt recipe?

They wouldn't have had to keep such a purpose secret.

But he hadn't found the clan library, only proof that there was one. But even knowing it was there somewhere, he couldn't find it, which, having dismantled every building on the grounds, led him to be terribly impressed by the stealth under which they'd hidden it.

There were, however, tucked in odd corners, forgotten behind bookshelves, fallen under beds, hidden inside of drawers and just part of the general mess, a few scrolls here or there that he'd discovered on techniques.

About thirty or so, again, and not in any particular order or grouping.

A substantial few of these were on the clan's martial art style, showing him more than Sasuke's scrolls had, although still very much incomplete. The style was clearly superior to the one taught in the academy, but what could you expect from a clan whose ability was to memorize anything they could see? By just keeping hold of the good bits even a dunce could establish something, and the ninja of the Uchiha clan had all had the academy training to start with, so it would have been simple to build up from there.

However there were enough blank spots, skipped portions and incomplete knowledge of it revealed in general on that scattered collection of scrolls that Naruto did not know how to learn it just yet, although he could get started practicing on what those scrolls did show.

Most of the other scrolls covered ninja techniques that he already knew. The Paralysis one, and Body Flicker were among them, also most of his fire stuff he found other copies of.

But there were two new ones he'd never heard of before, as well as four illusions. One of the two was a Wind technique that Naruto was quite glad for, as previously his only techniques for Wind had been that sound amplifier he'd used as a microphone without speakers to carry his voice over wide areas, a Gusty Barricade for stopping thrown weapons (not that people used many of those on him, or at least they hadn't yet), and two attack forms: the big and clumsy Slashing Tornado he'd once used for cutting apart Manda, the giant snake, but was too unwieldy for most purposes, and a Pressure Bullet that shot out a ball of air for attacking over long distances.

Those were nice, but it wasn't a wide selection. He'd had almost twice that number of Earth and Water techniques. Although the scrolls he got from Sasuke's apartment had numbered thirty, and averaged six per element, it had been an average, not an exact distribution, and he'd been a little short on the Wind and Lightning departments, while being strong on Earth and Water, as far as numbers of techniques per element.

This new one, Breakthrough, was a welcome addition to an element he'd been previously short on, although it was more of that 'breathe it out through your mouth' school of ninjutsu that it was difficult if not impossible to use wearing a full face helm with a breath mask attached.

Actually, looking over that scroll Naruto considered something. This looked, in most ways, very similar to something Orochimaru did when he wanted to destroy wide areas. They both released blasts of wind in a long cone to cause massive destruction, although the snake freak's version was clearly bigger and more powerful than this one was intended to be.

They were probably related, though, like the Fireball and Great Fireball jutsu, where one was just a bigger, more impressive version of the other. Temari would know.

Actually, Naruto got a gleeful grin. Now wasn't exactly the time, but soon he could ask Temari all about her techniques! As a Wind specialist she had an impressive arsenal of one element he was currently short on.

Yes, learning some of that could be very nice indeed.

I I I

Hiashi was not a man used to dealing with equals. He'd had so few of them during his lifetime.

The Uchiha clan head, back when there had been one, had not been an equal so much as a rival to be surpassed and overcome, although Hiashi knew in the minds of others the Hyugas were a distant second to the glory of the Uchiha.

The other clans did not stand on equal footing with him, all being less than he was. Even his twin brother, having received a cursed seal on his forehead and not gotten the same quality of training, had not been an equal.

Hiashi's life had been unequally divided between superiors and inferiors. Those who were inferior, which was most of them, had to be properly subservient or else risk being punished. While those who were superior, which was a small list mostly reserved for the Hokage and Uchiha clan head, could be worked around and circumvented if one wanted to badly enough.

Acknowledging anyone as separate and equal chaffed and went contrary to his upbringing. Those who were strong ruled. It was the natural order of things and the reason he'd always been so harsh on his failure of a daughter.

She was not strong, therefore she was not fit to rule. An accident of birth had made her clan heiress, but he had been working to fix that and replace her with her much more powerful younger sister, Hanabi.

I I I

The town of Konoha was abuzz with news. There was a new bloodline carrying clan in town, that was always good news and cause for celebration. WHAT the bloodline was caused mixed feelings, to say the least.

Particularly since the boy who carried it had always evoked strong negative reactions.

To those who had no personal experience with the Kyubi's attack, it was a cause for confusion over the rest of Konoha's reaction. But, not having been there, they could not understand, even if it got described to them; which it couldn't because of the Hokage's law against telling anyone.

The mixed reaction was turning bad, however, and it didn't have far to go before it got very bad indeed. So, standing in his office, looking out over the village he had served for so many years, Sarutobi decided to do something that for many reasons he had felt was impossible for a great many years to come.

Those reasons he had not shared it before now were good ones, very strong and compelling ones, absolutely crucial to the boy's safety. But if the village was going to react as strongly as they might against him those previous reasons became meaningless.

Yes, they had disliked Naruto Uzumaki before now, even been mildly cruel to him, and so many had been only mildly cruel that it had all added up to a very cruel life indeed for the boy, but no one single action was responsible.

The Hokage had always believed that Naruto's actions could eventually win the town of his birth over. However, if they came to see his bloodline as the Kyubi reborn in flesh, that would not happen. Some impressions, once they are made, are irreversible. And if they truly decided he was an enemy...

They would make him into one, despite all of the boy's loyalty before this.

Sarutobi sighed. If only the office of Hokage was actually as powerful as everyone seemed to think it was. He had a powerful hand in issuing orders, but the execution of those orders was always up to those who ought to obey them. Sometimes their own feelings overrode his wishes, and they twisted or ignored or neglected his orders to follow their own feelings.

Even when that meant the social torture of a blameless boy, who also happened to be the only son of a hero they lovingly revered.

Without Naruto's help the demon fox could not have been sealed, and it would have destroyed Konoha utterly and completely in its fury. Without a child to seal the demon into, the Fourth Hokage would have been helpless to stop the creature's rampages.

And, being the kind, brave and generous man that he was, the Fourth had chosen to use his only son as the demon's containment vessel, believing that no other family should be made to sacrifice for his own plans, and asking only that his child be viewed as a hero for the sacrifice he was making.

A wish that had been utterly, totally and completely ignored, when it was not actively stomped upon, spat upon, or worse, by the very village he had saved.

No, the citizens of Konoha had never been rational when it came to the fox, and once they decided Naruto was the fox reborn nothing would turn them from that, and they would either drive him out or kill him, or force him to release that demon upon them once again.

They had always suspected him before, but with the new bloodline abilities registered it would go from a suspicion to fact in their minds. They would care nothing for his orders to protect or support the child then. They paid little enough attention to them now.

No, Sarutobi decided. It would turn a portion of the village against him in either case, but it was time to reveal certain information before the rumors grew out of hand. He would tell them of his successor's sacrifice in greater detail than they had heard before, and who Naruto really was, and coach it all in terms of the Fourth's victory over the Kyubi granting his line powers that he had stolen from the demon fox.

It would mean that many of the Fourth Hokage's very deadly enemies would seek the boy out and try to kill him, but better he be in danger from without than within, and Konoha was on the verge of driving that boy out forever.

And that was if they didn't succeed in killing him.

Or if he didn't actually release the demon upon them for trying.

No, they had to be told, or else they'd destroy any possibility of keeping the Fourth's legacy loyal to Konoha, if there was even a Konoha left after he was done with it. Sarutobi sent out ANBU to call the town together, close the shops and businesses to get everyone possible gathered together.

He had a speech to give, and he'd give it to them exactly how he'd thought it out in his mind. He would reveal that Naruto was the only child of the Fourth Hokage, and the reasons why that had to be concealed for so very long. He would tell them again that the boy was a hero, and if they failed to listen to him after that...

Then Konoha was ruined. Whether or not it survived, if they could reject him then, it was no longer the town that Sarutobi had cherished for most of his life. And he would tell them that, too. Because if they couldn't believe him then he was passing off this hat to whoever wanted it, to take his family and leave the village of his birth forever.

And he would encourage Naruto and his new family to come with him.

I I I

The shocked look on Naruto's face made the Hokage feel ill.

As he'd made the announcement he'd expected some reaction, even prepared for many of those by pre-seeding ANBU here or there to whisper the right thing at the right time for him.

He had not prepared for how the look on Naruto's face stung him.

It was as though he'd let the child starve, then told him there'd been a feast laid in the kitchen all along. The "Why did you let me suffer like that" face of trust suddenly challenged by disbelief; that by retaining this information, he had actually helped to author some of the child's suffering.

Sarutobi had never thought of it that way. He'd reasoned it all out before the child was a week old and never felt the need to challenge those assumptions since. It had been for the boy's own good. It had kept him safe.

But he could see in Naruto's eyes the boy disagreed, that he had felt neither good nor safe.

To the Hokage, the minor cruelties heaped upon the boy all of his life long were just that, minor. But he had never stopped to consider what it must have felt like to the boy at the center of them, when they made up his entire existence, and he did not have a whole lifetime of good experiences behind him to offset them and grant perspective.

It was not a small portion of his life, as it had been for the Hokage. It had been the whole thing, and it wasn't coming at the end of a long life full of accomplishments, either. No, it had all taken place when the boy was growing and developing, going through the process of discovering who he was - when he was more vulnerable than at any other period of his life.

A development that, Sarutobi realized at last, had been stunted by the cruel barbs he himself had dismissed as inconsequential.

To Naruto, however, they'd been of great consequence. Sarutobi could see clearly in his face the boy would've far rather lived with the deadly peril, and been loved, than to have grown up as he did, safe yet hated.

And in that perhaps he was correct, as the Uchiha also had many enemies, both in and out of Konoha, yet there had been few if any attempts on Sasuke's life.

The town's opinions were thrown in turmoil again, now knowing that the child they had always hated was the only son of their most beloved hero, and just as much responsible for the sealing of the tailed beast as the dead hero they adored so.

But the Hokage had underestimated just how much they'd hated the boy, and also how deeply rooted that had gotten, because not even this revelation made their opinions swing back to where he felt they ought to be, liking and respecting the boy at last.

No, what they got was more turmoil. It made Sarutobi feel old.

And he feared he might have to start planning that move.

I I I

That situation was not resolved one way or another before the attack came on the day of the finals, as usual.

Naruto thought they'd been ready. He'd planned, but things did not go the way he would've wished for them to.

That day began with several thousand of his clones seeded out across the village, ready to spring out and counter enemy ninja, and that was the only reason he knew anything about that day at all.

The real Naruto had been taken out in the first moments, before any warning had arrived.

Orochimaru, knowing that Gaara, after having befriended Naruto, was not liable to help him destroy the village, had had a whole month to go seek other options, and knowing Gaara was liable to join in the defense of Konoha, he'd brought not one extra sidekick along, but several.

It started when they were all waiting for Sasuke, as usual. Many of Naruto's brides had lost their fights and that had much of his attention captured, but then the walls inside the waiting area had exploded and he knew no more.

His clones, seeded around that area as well as other battle sites, had seen enough to piece together what happened later. Some freaky bone guy with a Sound headband had broken into the waiting room where contestants stayed between their fights, and he'd taken down Naruto so fast it wasn't even funny, departing with a shot back to the other genin, something about how his master "Wanted the blond brat for his parties" and so he "was going to get the blond brat for his parties!"

Bullets and javelins of bone had slaughtered some of the other hopefuls, but they were still trying to muster a group to follow after the ninja in his escape when a woman in her early twenties just walked right out of the wall, grabbed Hinata around the throat, and phased back out through the stone.

The trouble was, that woman was wearing a headband from the hidden village of Cloud, not Sand or Sound.

After that it would have been reasonable to assume that a large party of Cloud ninja would join with the attackers from the other two villages, but aside from that one woman, whom he'd say was a jonin, none of his clones had reported seeing any other Cloud headbands among the invasion army.

Nor were those the only shocks. There were several others. Hinata was gone before anyone realized that the bone using guy had slapped Gaara with a Forced Sleep illusion, putting Gaara under and allowing the personality of the One Tailed Demon Raccoon to take over.

That had been a mess, to say the least, as no one had even realized what was wrong before the monster was already forming out of sand, and they'd been forced to flee, fight or die. Although, for those genin, fighting and dying were almost the same thing against Gaara's demonic body.

The extent of this catastrophe had been small enough to escape notice from the stands, so the audience was largely unaware of them until they'd all gone beyond easy fixing, and by then they'd had their own problems.

Naruto had been through this battle enough times to know that a big cause for the massive casualties had been someone putting the entire stadium to sleep, where they could be killed like sitting ducks. So, not knowing who or how, Naruto had seeded that area and its environs with clones to spy out whoever did it and how it was done.

He'd spotted an ANBU in the back of the crowds pull off the technique. This time through he'd placed his clones so they were able to catch him, however.

It was Kabuto. They'd only fought for a few moments before he'd lost his mask, and it was the ninja who'd always been so friendly during the early steps of the exam, standing there wearing a Sound headband.

The shock was enough that his clones stopped fighting and Kabuto destroyed all of the ones around him, before making good on his escape.

That had only been the beginnings of this catastrophe, however. Apparently deciding that he could not count on Gaara not to be woken before he went all demony on everyone, Orochimaru had brought in more. From different parts of the village lightning gathered together to form the Six Tailed Demon Tiger, and various other elements combined to form the Eight Tailed Demon Dragon.

The Konoha left behind by these three terrible beasts was not even fit to call a crater, having been blasted so many times it was more of a dip in the ground without even so much as a recognizable burn or impact shape. The shinobi from Sand and Sound had to do nothing more than prevent Konoha ninja from escaping.

One last clone survived that destruction, having followed after the bone guy in the shapeshifted form of a normal red fox, catching up to him after the other pursuing clones had been destroyed, and when the guy apparently thought he was free and clear.

Or perhaps it was that he'd been paying more attention to the two guys in black towels who'd stopped him, the overstuffed bathrobe sort of look that made you doubt the guy in it was wearing any underpants, or pants.

That clone had survived long enough to hear the name, "Itachi," before one of the towel guys noticed their eavesdropper and pierced him with a senbon, or something. In truth the clone didn't even know what hit it.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Now really, here Orochimaru has arranged for the utter destruction of his home village, and one of his key pieces changed sides, but he had a whole month to prepare a replacement.

Why did so many think he wouldn't do anything?

Beast Rant:

No 8-tailed snake had appeared before the time skip. No 8-tailed snake was listed in any of the directories I use for resource material, therefore, for purposes of this story, no 8-tailed snake exists. Same goes for any badgers. First I'd heard of it was in reviews, and by then it was too late, I'd already committed to different characters.

You know, I even had a moment of weakness, thinking "Aw, it won't be so bad. If it matters to them that much I could go back and change it." But then I came up dry on all of my searches for information, and thought, "There is no way that I can get this right. Even if I tried to change it, everyone would be jumping down my throat over details I'd missed, and they'd be insisting on things that didn't match up with what I needed to continue my plot. So, might as well be blatantly wrong as subtly. I'll just go with what I've got already."

So now, I do not WANT information on Bakamoto's version of the beasts!

It all came post-time-skip, so it doesn't matter in any case, as if you've read this far you've seen my disclaimer on the first chapter of this story.

Nothing post-timeskip applies. It never happened, it will never happen, and the junk Bakamoto made up about rules of how this or that worked do not apply.

If I cared, I could even point out that he replaced 'fish' with 'turtle' on the formula several people gave me, so even he's not sticking to it very well, as by my dictionary the scientific classification of turtle is reptile, not even an amphibian, just a reptile that swims.

And he'd replaced raccoon with a Japanese raccoon dog, which just happens to be a breed of FOX! So you've got the one-tailed FOX, the nine-tailed fox, the three tailed REPTILE, and presumably the four-tailed reptile as well on that nonsense he calls the 'official series'.

So don't even talk to me about that formula any more. It doesn't apply here!

This much I will give you, as a favor I will do you for your sakes, I will go back and switch the tail numbers I'd given mine previously, so the dragon will be eight and the tiger seven. That way you can assuage any nail-biting, as a tiger is as close to a badger as a turtle is to a fish (actually, scientifically much closer), and you purists can relax in that, at the size of snake they're using in this series, they aren't much different from oriental dragons.

Actually, I have been told, by an actual Japanese person no less, that the 8 tails might just as well have been based on a mythical dragon as a mythical snake. Similarly, the 6 tails might have been based on a weasel, or it might have been based on The White Tiger of the West. So we'll go with that and give the tiger six tails.

This is now officially an AU, for those who couldn't figure it out before.

Beast Rant, Take Two: And now those 'purists' who'd flamed me so badly over my not following their made-up little pattern for what beast matched how many tails have some serious egg on their faces, as not even Kishimoto paid any attention to their formula.

Of course, I won't be adhering to his, either, but that should not surprise you by now.


	27. Chapter 27

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Seven

by Lionheart

I I I  
Author's Prequel:  
See previous chapter's author's notes for Beast Rant, if you care about that sort of thing, as it was too big to fit here.

I I I

Orochimaru was amused, not just a little amused but very, as virtually all of his long term plans had come to fruition in one day and it was now setting on towards night.

Really, how could it get any better than this?

By promising to restore Tsunade's boyfriend and brother to life, he'd gotten her to heal Kimimaro Kaguya, who was among his most useful servants. With his assistance and power, it had been child's play to arrange a number of other helpful incidents and additions to his plans.

Orochimaru, having been in the criminal organization Akatsuki, who sought the tailed demons to use their power, had a fair idea of where some of them were, so went and got them. And he'd used two demons because he was certain one would be opposing him. Simple battle by numbers meant always making sure they're on your side, or at least not against it.

As far as sealing or unsealing those beasts went, he didn't bother.

The Great Five ninja villages had each tried creating their own, but many of the minor villages had experimented with that as well, hoping that by doing so they could become major villages. However, due to the many drawbacks of the results, not many had kept those vessels around.

He already knew of at least three, possibly four, demon vessels who were outcast, abandoned by their villages, simply ripe for the taking.

Since Akatsuki was not going to be active on the demon capturing phase of their plan for many years yet that meant they were still wandering around unclaimed. So Orochimaru claimed them. When his first idea to use a vessel didn't work, he merely went out and got others, then modified their seals to have the same weaknesses as Gaara's.

Child's play, really. He wondered why he hadn't gone and done it before. Oh, yes. The Kazekage of Sand had caught wind of some of his plans and was about to warn Konoha, so he'd had to kill him. Then, having done it, it had seemed so artful to turn one ally against the other. So instead of facing two villages allied against him, through one assassination and impersonation he could turn one against the other to aid in his own plans.

It had been artful, really.

But not as satisfying as what he'd just accomplished. That blond boy had forced him to modify his plans until really the end result had been better than his plans before it.

He really ought to thank that child for inspiring him to new heights when it came to his plan to destroy Konoha, as the end result had been a thing of art, truly a form of poetry in destruction.

Not only had he destroyed his former teacher and the village that had once rejected his rights to do with their citizens as he pleased, but he'd tweaked the nose of his former criminal comrades while doing it.

One of the problems with the Akatsuki organization was they had to do things in a certain order.

He was not so bound.

They had to steal and seal all of the tailed beasts in order from least to greatest, and so they wouldn't dare to move before they had found them all, lest they tip off others to their plans and create resistance.

An enemy, knowing they needed those demons for their plots, might destroy one of the containers, slaying the beast inside, just to frustrate them, as Akatsuki needed all of those beasts in order to carry out their grand plan. So, they could not act until they were fully prepared to move quickly and decisively, carrying out their plan completely before anyone could react to try and stalemate them.

Thus, until they were fully prepared to collect them all, with everything ready to do so, they dare not capture any. It was one of the many reasons he'd left the organization. They had no flexibility or imagination.

And they couldn't begin the demon capturing stage of their plan at once anyway, as they had other stages they intended to go through first, namely accumulating the wealth required to construct a mercenary army, and then constructing it, before they even began to hunt for demon containers.

So he'd gone and borrowed a couple of those demon containers they'd found out about, but hadn't yet made any moves against. If they'd died during that battle that was nothing to him, except that it would amuse him to no end to see the Akatsuki frustrated like that.

They had such small minds, really! He'd gone and achieved two of their goals without them, creating his own hidden village, more loyal and cheaper than an army of mercenaries, and thus a more than an adequate substitute, and by doing so already got wealthy.

He could achieve the power they desired simply by destroying the other ninja villages, one by one, in strikes like this one, and the irony was many of the survivors would come flocking to him as missing ninja.

It would amuse him to frustrate more of Akatsuki's plans in the future, but for now taking their precious demon containers under his wing and sending them out in active combat where they might die amused him enough.

Of course, playing in their sandbox this blatantly guaranteed his former criminal friends would come after him in return, which ordinarily he would not have risked, as it would have cost him too much time away from his other projects dealing with them, but with Kimimaro fully healed by Tsunade, well, he had less cause to fear those visits.

Significantly less cause.

Akatsuki, who had agents watching those demon vessels, had caught him going to interact with their prey, so followed along to see what he was doing.

But Itachi and his partner had run away rather than face him and Kimimaro together, when he'd caught them interrupting his agent's escape with that lovely blond haired party thrower.

Cloud had also sensed something, as he'd spotted an agent or two of theirs about. They'd most likely been tipped off something was up when he'd begun gathering demon containers to his service, just like Akatsuki had. But they had not interfered with his plans, most likely just there to see if they could gain any advantage out of the destruction of their old enemy.

No, life really didn't get any better than this.

Orochimaru was ignorant of it as the reset occurred, shifting things back to their starting point and erasing all of the snake sannin's hard won progress and satisfaction, putting him back near the beginning of his plans.

I I I

Naruto didn't know about anyone else, but after a month-long honeymoon that ended with his brides, friends, village, and everybody else he knew or even cared about being abducted and/or killed... he thought he was going to need "a day or two" to recuperate before heading off to do the whole month all over again.

Still, some questions were just going to bug him until he got answers for them, so he might as well start out early, so long as he pursued it in a low stress kind of way.

He'd long ago been able to create a nin-info card without any of the items or persons he was seeking present, just using images pulled out of his mind, and he'd developed an exceptional memory.

So, that morning, on his way to the written part of the chunin test, he made one for that Cloud ninja chick, patterned after the ones the spy used, and when Kabuto came over to talk to them he (after restraining the urge to strangle the traitor) bent over to 'pick up' a 'dropped card' and showed it to Kabuto, asking him, "Who is this?"

Seeing as how he was part of that invasion, he might just know.

Kabuto accepted the card from him in some surprise. "Wow! I didn't even know I had a card on this lady. In fact, I'm sure I didn't. Where did you get this?"

Naruto just gave him a childish and helpless, 'I don't know' sort of shrug and gestured to where he'd bent over toward the floor.

"Who is it?" Ino asked.

Bless her heart.

Kabuto straightened up his glasses and looked more closely at the card. It was disturbingly like his own, even patterned with the same back. He could've sworn he hadn't been foolish enough to carry any of these kind of cards to the chunin test, where he wouldn't need them. And he really didn't think he had, as this one was missing most of the data he had on his card for her.

Seeing the eyes of the genin on him, Kabuto had to be mindful of his disguise of a friendly, helpful, older student and smiled. "Well, this belongs more in a bingo book than a card collection like mine. This lady is Yugito Nii, her rank is probably jonin. She's a Cloud ninja who has sometimes been called the "Living Ghost." Rumor has it she can walk through walls, breathe fire, and a host of other things. Luckily we won't be having to deal with anyone like her on this test, or I'd flunk my seventh time for sure!"

And with that, the special infiltration agent put the card away, giving it a place among his own until he could analyze it to learn where it came from.

He wouldn't pay very much attention to the stray dogs fighting over garbage that would witness where he was going as he left for that day, nor the fox hiding under some bushes by a rabbit hole on the next, or the rabbit chewing on grass further along on his path the day after that.

No, he wouldn't notice those at all. But they would notice him, and note where he was going. Yes, they would note that very carefully indeed.

Kabuto had just become a man to watch.

I I I

Listening in on Kabuto's conversation with Orochimaru as the two traitors talked was enlightening.

Very enlightening indeed.

Naruto had known the ears were useful, as they'd proved that by themselves more or less right out of the box. On Tenten's advice he'd begun to test out the tail, and to his surprise it looked very much like that was going to be an effective tool in his arsenal from then on. While he could not yet use any of his techniques with it, indications were pretty clear he soon would, as he was almost there with some of them already.

That left him to consider the last of his 'foxy accessories', the oft-forgotten whiskers.

When they'd been nothing more than lines on his face that's all they'd been - lines on his face. He might've put them there with makeup for all of the difference they made. Now that they stuck out like hairs, though, things were entirely different.

Much like he'd worked hard at ignoring the sensations caused by his tail, the boy had actively shut out what he'd been feeling out of those whisker hairs. But now that he was paying attention to them, he realized they were yet another information gathering device.

He could sense breezes no one else would notice, that was the first one, but far from the last. His ability to sense air movements through them was so acute that he could tell when bodies around him were in motion, whether or not he could hear or see them.

As he began to explore this, he discovered that ability could be used as a sort of danger sense. Objects in motion around him could be sensed as they shifted the air. Fast movements made pressure waves completely different than slow ones did, and after some practice he began to be able to tell, just by feeling with his whiskers, what was moving and where.

So, when something began to come at him quickly, the pressure waves it created still got there first, regardless of how fast it was, and by being able to detect those pressure waves, he could often react to something before it arrived. Even the air displaced by ninja techniques like Body Switch or Flicker made distinctive impressions that he began to learn how to detect and react to before the ninja had fully arrived.

Potentially deadly useful as a ninja technique, although like all of the rest his ability to use it properly would have to be developed.

Another thing the medics had proclaimed him as having was excellent night vision. Naruto had never given it any thought. How he saw at night was simply how he saw at night, it had never occurred to him to wonder if that was better or worse than anyone else's.

But Tenten had gone all squeally over how useful that was to ninja, and how much it would benefit her progeny, and how well suited it was especially in combination with their fantastic ears, making them even better scouts.

It had hurt a surprising amount to lose her. Even though he could get her back, he wasn't eager to do it only to lose her again. That HURT!

Naruto had been busy adapting the Inuzuka clan Flash Suppressor technique from their nose to his ears, as, since when they became a clan that became a known issue, there would be ninja out there intending to take advantage of his keen hearing to use that against him.

Although one thing he had not expected was how much more easily he could find his girls during their month of wedded bliss after that first morning. At first he couldn't understand it, he just knew where they were without looking, just knowing. He was beginning to think he had some kind of psychic mate sense or whatever you want to call it, until Gaara stroked his tail, looking alot like a toddler that had just discovered stuffed animals, and all of a sudden he could find him, too.

And now, after the reset, he couldn't find any of them.

After some study in the library on the subject of foxes, he was able to find out why. It was his tail. He had a scent gland in the tip, and whatever touched that he could find so easily he wasn't even aware how he'd been doing it.

So he had an ability to mark stuff if he wanted to find them later. That could be useful.

I I I

"Hey Sasuke!" The blond genin walked up to his teammate and slapped him on the back, before whispering in his ear loud enough for all to hear, "I was just wondering, why does your hair look like a duck's butt?"

The Last Uchiha growled and threw a fist at him.

Naruto, who'd read about that move now, not only blocked it but spun the other boy about until he had him pinned on the floor underneath him. "Hmm," the orange clad genin peered more closely into his teammate's hair, before jumping back and declaring, "I knew it! You are a natural pink-head! You just dye it! EWWW!" The blond boy squirmed in disgust. "That means Sakura is only after you to fill all of her sick, incestuous fantasies!"

The room full of chunin hopefuls broke out laughing. Sakura was mortified. Sasuke was disgusted by his teammate acting like this, and, as he picked himself up off of the floor, opted to ignore him.

Naruto was grinning both outside and in. He'd been using a simple Disguise technique instead of his full Shapeshift to hide his foxy bits, and, now having slapped the guy with his tail as well as his hand to disguise that contact, he could experiment with how far a range he could detect someone over, and how long a scent marking lasted, gathering useful information on the limits of his new ability, while practicing with all of the rest of them, too.

As he watched his teammate sulk, and pretend not to have been humiliated before the other chunin hopefuls waiting to take the written test, Naruto began recalling to mind something that the Hokage had told him a few times he'd been in there to get the Uchiha property.

Sasuke had been subjected to torture by his brother for several days using a special illusion. The special part of that to Naruto was the illusion. He'd asked about this in more detail the few times he'd dared, and all the Hokage would say was that it was a special, secret technique that trapped a victim inside their mind for three days while the one who cast it tortured them.

Well, Naruto had no interest in torturing anyone. Well, except maybe Sasuke, but the broody brat deserved it. On that point, at least, he could agree with Itachi. But anyway, the real value of this, to him, lay in that special illusion.

What if you didn't want to torture anyone? What if you just wanted to spend time with them? And, if you really could capture someone in an illusion that lasts only a second or so, but you get three days with them... he could be TRAINING them! There were TONS of things he'd like to teach Tenten and Hinata before they began the second stage of the chunin exam!

Obviously, he didn't have the time during real time. But if he could be training them up on some of those abilities, they'd have much easier tests not only during the prelims, but during the finals, too!

This idea kicked learning new illusions up a notch on his personal priority list.

And the best teacher for that was Kurenai.

I I I

After a failed appeal to his teacher of choice, Naruto had shapeshifted into a pile of paperwork and had one of his shadow clones, shapeshifted into the form of one of the Hokage's clerks, carry him in to the office to set him on the Hokage's desk before Kurenai got there, as he'd wanted to know why she went to the Hokage's office after refusing to train him.

And Hinata's teacher entered with a full head of steam, getting right to the point the moment she arrived.

"Hokage, you've got to let me teach him! Naruto's basic Clone is picture perfect, you could shave by it! He uses no handseals to call it forth and it arrives without hardly a trace, even a skilled ninja could easily miss its arrival if they weren't careful! His Transformation is almost as good, and his Veil isn't the usual one, it has fewer limits of size and space and a much greater operator range. The kid is a natural illusion genius! I can't think of how he got so good with all of the lousy teaching he's had! Plus, I've seen him using nin-info cards that other genin Kabuto is flashing around, the ones based on our secret markers. But Naruto makes his own! Those are another form of C-rank illusion, one programmed and imprinted on a solid object to be activated by chakra. We have chunin who call themselves illusion specialists who don't have Naruto's facility for this art!"

Sarutobi was nodding, sucking on his pipe with a big smile. "I'm glad to hear it. But, as you know, that decision ultimately resides with Kakashi, as his jonin instructor, and so far he's refused, saying it will disrupt his own plans for Naruto's development."

Kurenai leaned over placing her hands on the Hokage's desk. "Kakashi HAS NO plans for Naruto's development! He plans to keep him back so he can treat his favorite to the ability to taunt his rival for being useless!"

The Hokage instantly went from kind old man to a stern taskmaster. "That is enough! Kurenai, when I trusted Kakashi to be Naruto's jonin instructor it was with the utmost faith in his ability! And I do not suspect his having entered Naruto into the chunin exams, over his academy instructor's protests, was an attempt to hold him back!"

Hinata's teacher stood back, humbly. One did not argue with the Hokage lightly, and she'd overstepped some bounds. "I'm sorry for my presumption. Good day, Hokage-sama." She bowed her head and turned to leave.

Well, Naruto had gotten an earful of interesting information.

With a deliberate BAMPH! Naruto was suddenly sitting on the Hokage's desk in his usual form. "Actually, I've also got a variant of the Transformation that, according to Ebisu, ought to be an S-ranked technique! It's an actual, physical change instead of an illusion!"

The Hokage, his two ANBU guards, and Kurenai all stood staring at him slack-jawed. Hmm, he might have to do this again.

Reaching over, he tweaked the Hokage's nose. "And gramps, if you think Kakashi cares about anyone but the Uchiha you're sorely mistaken. If he could have left me out of the exams and still entered his prodigy, he would have. He's never given me any training of any kind. I've had to work on my own for everything I've learned. So whatever schedule he says you might be interrupting is hogwash."

Sarutobi was sputtering. "Naruto! Enough! As your instructor Kakashi has my full faith and trust!"

The boy leaned over at stared at the old man nose to nose. "Gramps, if you trust him, then I can no longer trust you. Which will it be?"

The scene was silent for several moments, before Sarutobi sighed. "Has he really been that cruel to you, Naruto?"

"In a word? Yes!" The boy stood there, proudly folding his arms. "I'd have done better on ANY OTHER TEAM!"

If his words had been a whip lashing him Sarutobi would hardly have acted any differently. "But Naruto, if things are that bad why didn't you say anything?"

Naruto went nose to nose with the Hokage and told him flatly, "He's had 'your full faith and trust'. I told you, old man, and you didn't believe me. I was in here complaining and you dismissed me. I had to wait until there was another jonin saying the Exact Same Thing and then show you skills you hadn't known I'd learned, because Kakashi cares NOTHING for my instruction and so didn't bother to report to you because he'd never seen it, before you'd believe me!"

That answer seemed to deflate the Hokage, filling him up with sadness. "He was a student of your father's. I had hoped..." the old man gave it up and sighed. "I'm sorry, Naruto. Truly sorry indeed."

"Sorry doesn't get me any training," the demon container interrupted. "I've had to lie, cheat, and STEAL to get my ninja abilities! And while it's done wonders for my stealth skills, I shouldn't have had to treat my instructor as an Enemy Combatant out to restrict my growth by any means possible!"

"Yes, of course. Kurenai, you may teach him what you will." The old man waved a gnarled old hand tiredly, seeming very frail in that moment.

"Naruto," the old man's voice came to them as Hinata's teacher was opening the door for them both. "It should not need to be said, but just so you know for certain, you have heard it from my own mouth: Kakashi is no longer the instructor of Team 7. His status as an instructor of any sort will be put on probation, pending a full investigation of his actions. Deliberately sabotaging one's own student's welfare is an inexcusable charge, and he will pay the penalty, I assure you."

Naruto nodded firmly and left with Kurenai.

After the demon container and his new teacher were gone, Sarutobi mustered enough of himself to chuckle dryly to his guards. "And now I shall never again be able to entirely free myself of the suspicion that my paperwork is spying on me."

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Well, that came together surprisingly quickly. Don't worry, as Naruto is far from being over with the development of his abilities, and now being able to get Kurenai to instruct him, he will be shooting forward on an area where he was previously blocked.

So, good times are ahead for him, perhaps better ones than you know. Wink!


	28. Chapter 28

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Eight

by Lionheart

I I I

Kurenai was a dream teacher in many ways. She knew exactly how to coach what she was saying in terms her students could understand. She was also fair. Since Naruto would be learning illusions under her, she called her whole team together to let them sit in on those lessons, so no one was left out.

Illusions being her peculiar area of specialty, she knew a lot to pass on, too.

For Naruto this was bliss, as she knew a great deal of why things worked with illusions and was able to pass that on to him in ways that demystified the whole art for him; not enough to free him up to experiment, as it was all the hows and whys of how to use them properly, because she didn't feel ready yet to tell them the nuts and bolts of how they really worked, but it did help him substantially in perfecting and tweaking all of the illusions he knew.

She would have gone faster, but was keeping it to a pace at which her team could follow, although the jonin positively glowed when he caught on at once and started to ask insightful questions.

Hey, you study ABOUT an art for years, even if only peripherally, and you learn what to ask when you start learning the topic itself.

And Naruto had always had an amazing gift at learning, that was when he was actually being taught something, rather than put off, ignored or sabotaged. No, he was making Kurenai a very happy teacher indeed.

Of course, that was not all that was going on. Naruto had a team of clones strip mining the Uchiha estate, blasting the topsoil off to expose the bedrock underneath, looking for signs of concealed construction even on that.

Hey, that Uchiha library had to be SOMEWHERE, right? And if it wasn't in a building it was probably buried. Somehow he doubted they'd be trusting enough to place it on someone else's property.

He also had clones out mastering the Wind techniques Temari had shown him, as well as others practicing everything else he still had on the development list, like all of his chakra control exercises and perfecting the last little touches on his basic techniques, while practicing his other skills.

Among those other techniques were a whole new slew of chakra control exercises he'd devised through Tenten's suggestion about using his tail in battle, because if he could channel chakra through his tail to create jutsu, why not explore using it through other areas of his body?

He'd fought Neji more than once in the chunin finals, and he'd listened to that Heavenly Spin technique of his described more than once. It required the boy to emit chakra from all over his body as one of the steps to executing it.

So, that was something Naruto began to try. He might or might not be able to use the actual technique, probably not as everyone kept saying it needed the Hyuga bloodline to use properly, and Kakashi not having copied it seemed to bear that out. But still, every other time he'd learned to manipulate his chakra in new ways, one of the payoffs from that had been more control.

Nor was he sticking to just that. The very idea of using chakra through other places on your body threw off all sorts of limits on his progress.

He'd been taught to float a leaf above his forehead. Now he had clones out there practicing that, with the leaves floating above his hands, shoulders, feet, elbows, nose, tongue, ears, armpits, back, whiskers, tail and so on.

The same thing with the tree climbing thing. Instead of sticking to a vertical surface using his feet alone, he was now trying to use other areas of his body, so he could sit on the side of a wall, cling to it with the backs of his arms, palms, knees, tail, the top of his head and so on.

Any part of his body was fair game for this, and by branching out like this he was learning lots and accelerating the pace of his improvement. Already his chakra control was back to where Ebisu would've called it, "Tolerable, above average, but barely," which, of course, was making it easier to learn illusions.

And, what was better yet, he still hadn't topped out on what this new type of exercise could teach him! He was still expanding his control from there!

Experimenting with those seals was still consuming an awful lot of clones.

Actually, one happy incident about the whole seal experiment thing was that his limiters had improved to the point where he could, between them and his newly improved base of chakra control, pass himself off as having Perfect control, if only barely, and only when he was concentrating real hard on it.

But that still opened up whole new avenues to pursue on his medical studies. Now he could pretend to be one of those rare people with perfect control, so could qualify for the really intensive and valuable classes, learning the highest grades of medical skills that were also the most valuable.

And, over the past few resets since the wedding and before getting Kurenai as a teacher, he'd been doing exactly that, getting his clones to take over for him during not only the written but the forest tests so he could use that time himself, spending it at the hospital getting his medical skills up.

And they had been shooting up nicely, too.

After only one day under Kurenai already Naruto was looking forward to more of the same from her.

He was just walking along toward home for more training, having had clones deliver meals out to where Kurenai was teaching them to maximize that opportunity so she wouldn't call it for meals, yet still having exhausted what she was willing to teach for the day, when he caught Sakura coming up to him in a fine head of steam. "Naruto! Where have you been? Kakashi called us together, but you didn't show up! I've been out looking for you for hours! You shouldn't waste a lady's time like that!"

He batted away her hand where she tried to grab him to haul along behind her like a disobedient child. "Haruno, there is a code of conduct a girl has to live up to before she can be called a lady. You don't, therefore, you aren't."

Her anger quickly turned to shock, then confusion. Since when he had ever stood up to her, or talked back to her, before?

Hey! That was insulting! Since when was she not a lady? She ought to smack him for... then her mind kicked in and analyzed that statement. Her mom had said much on the topic of ladylike behavior, and... she hadn't... been...

How'd Naruto known she hadn't been living up to that? Who'd told him about that code anyway? Where had he heard of it? Sakura's mind grasped for any excuse it could to avoid coming to face that he was right on the button about her behavior, that it was as far from ladylike as it was possible to get and not be a gorilla.

There were other ways of breaking that code, it was true, other extreme paths she might have followed. But between her shouting and rudeness to him in general, not to mention her violence, those parts she was breaking she was breaking almost as thoroughly as one can.

The girl filled with shame and cringed back, an "Ooops, caught!" expression on her face.

Still, the crisis got taken out of her hands as Kakashi showed up. "Naruto! You did not arrive when I called the team together."

"That's because you don't have any authority to call our team together. You aren't on it. You are no longer our instructor anymore. I heard it from the Hokage's own mouth - you don't teach anyone anymore. You are on probation for having majorly screwed up with us."

Kakashi looked on him, what parts of his face could be seen filled with both sadness and disappointment. "So, it was you..."

"Who turned you in? Yeah. It was me. What of it?" Naruto sent a challenge right back. "What was it you've always said, those who abandon their team are worse than garbage? Well, that's what YOU ARE! You could only hope that someday you might rise as high as only being GARBAGE!"

Sakura flinched back from this exchange.

"Say, why were you ever given a team, anyway?" Naruto asked his teacher.

"I am the perfect teacher for Sasuke." Kakashi stated boldly.

"Really?" Naruto leaned in close to stare in the jonin's exposed eye. "Here I thought you had three students."

Turning away to walk home, Naruto noticed they had drawn something of a crowd. Kurenai had taught her lessons at one of the training grounds and it had just been easier to cross the Academy from where he'd been on his route to where he was going. Since classes had just gotten out, there were dozens of ninja listening to this exchange.

So he turned right back to face Kakashi. "Oh, by the way. The Hokage let slip this morning that you were a student of my father's."

Kakashi's eye went wide, in a slightly panicked way.

"Now I may not have known who my father was," Naruto lied expertly. "That secret was always kept from me. But it was REAL EASY to look up who your one and only teacher was - The Fourth Hokage!"

Gasps were heard from the assembled ninja. Sakura's jaw dropped wide open.

Naruto stood there boldly, placing his hands on his hips to declare, "From that start it was easy to confirm: I Am The Son Of The FOURTH HOKAGE!" He shouted out in a loud voice that covered the entire schoolyard, whereupon hundreds more came by to listen, shock and disbelief in many of their eyes.

"But you sacrificed me, sabotaging my progress, letting no other teacher train me while you deliberately held me back!" He told Kakashi at the top of his lungs. "And you didn't even do it to make your own favorite student better! THAT much could have been served by making us both compete for abilities! NO! Instead you chose to do it just to stroke his already bloated, ugly pride! You did it to make him feel superior!"

Kakashi's eye was now widened into an "Ooops, caught!" expression.

Naruto crowded into the jonin's personal space, yet continued shouting. "Now I don't know what punishment a teacher gets for BETRAYING his students! But this much I will tell you: Whatever bonds of honor, love or loyalty you owe my family, you have BROKEN! Whatever debts you owed to your teacher you have failed to repay, and not just failed, but utterly turned your back upon! You have SPAT upon Honor! You have turned aside from duty! You have SHAT upon trust! And whatever oaths you owed to my father, the Fourth Hokage, You Have Betrayed!"

Turning his back upon the jonin, Naruto called back over his shoulder. "Your own father was called on to commit suicide over a dishonor LESS than yours! But you haven't even got the sense to feel shame over it! Kakashi, by your behavior you DEFINE worthless! All of Konoha is soiled by having you a member of it!"

Sakura practically fainted over this storm of fury directed to her teacher.

And with that, Naruto stormed out of the courtyard, leaving the assembled ninja stunned, stumped and flabbergasted to start rumors behind him. For once, they would even be in his favor.

I I I

"Is it true, Sarutobi? Is the demon child the son of the Fourth?" a council member seriously asked while that body was in session, only waiting for him to deny it so they could go drop severe punishment on the boy for claiming it.

Sarutobi could sense that, and was inwardly cursing his loose mouth. Naruto truly was a genius ninja, both to have penetrated his office and to have made so much out of a careless slip of his tongue. Also, he'd grown up an orphan, so it was hardly surprising that he'd brag about his family the moment he knew of it.

"Yes, it is true." He sighed, taking out his pipe and blowing a plume of smoke before continuing. "Arashi decided to use his own son as the vessel, viewing it as his family's responsibility to contain the beast and save Konoha. It was his last request that his son be treated as a hero. A request which this council has consistently ignored, when they weren't actively betraying it" he finished off pointedly, causing the assembled clan heads to stir uncomfortably in their seats.

"We didn't know!" One of them blurted out defensively.

"You knew enough!" Sarutobi retorted, striking while the iron was hot. "Even if you cared nothing for the Fourth Hokage or his wishes, there is still the fact that all of you here know enough about seals to know that demon could not have been contained without a child to seal it into. Naruto is just as much responsible for saving us all from the nine tailed fox as his father!"

There was much uncomfortable stirring and glancing about among the members of that august body.

Sarutobi blew out another cloud of smoke. "Naruto's ancestry could not have been revealed without a danger to his life. Arashi made far too many enemies at home and abroad during his exploits that made him qualify for the office. It was my intention not to reveal his parentage until the boy was a jonin, able to protect himself in his own right from the enemies he would inherit, and I'd hoped by that point he'd also have a loyal team to stand by him, neither of which is the case now. The boy is outcast even among his own teammates."

He gave them a pointed glare, while they did their best to avoid meeting his gaze. Most of them had at one point or another subtly worked to encourage people to ostracize the boy, and those who hadn't done it themselves knew that it was going on, could have worked to stop it, and hadn't.

Those of them who had been ninja, which was by far the majority, began to consider, for the first time in their lives, what it would be like to have a team that hated you - and most could not imagine it. Their teams had made up their closest and most precious friends over most of their lives.

They started to squirm as they realized that was just a bit of the damage they'd done, both to the boy, and the memory of possibly the most cherished hero of Konoha.

One of those, who owned a chain of shops and had always nurtured a secret pride over how much money he'd managed to chisel out of the boy, began to feel that high percentage of the orphan's allowance he'd effectively stolen, and always felt a trophy of his own personal victory over the Kyubi, turn to ash and lead in his mind. He'd always before cherished the pain and poverty he'd caused Naruto, and now began to feel decidedly ill inside, as he'd once counted himself a friend of Arashi Kazama and had taken that revenge out on the child in his old friend's name.

Then he began to consider the special kunai he'd commissioned to sell to the child - the worst it was possible to make that still looked normal.

That man was not alone among them in having his face turn white in shame. There were many others among them who'd done the same type of deeds in their own particular ways.

True remorse of conscience began to appear in that room.

Sarutobi sighed, feeling tired, saddened that it had taken this to change their minds concerning Arashi's child. "It was my intent not to tell Naruto until he was far more prepared to protect himself. But in a careless slip of the tongue, I told him enough today that he was able to figure out the rest. His skills are remarkable, despite his lack of training, and others who've acted deliberately to hold him back," he gave several council members, particularly those with influence over the ninja academy, pointed looks of disapproval.

They all squirmed beneath that glare.

The Hokage leaned back in his chair, replacing his pipe and sucking on it. "I will, of course, be releasing Arashi's house and scrolls to the boy. Now that he has the dangers, he may as well enjoy the benefits."

There came a complete lack of disagreement from others in that chamber.

I I I

The results of this news being confessed by guilty, shame-faced, remorseful clan heads in private to their own respective clans was far different to having the Hokage declare it to an angry and confused town.

The remorse felt by their own clan heads transmitted down to those who had obeyed their orders to mistreat the boy or shun him. They felt their own guilt and shame over their treatment of him, and the encouragement they gave to others to do so.

And it all made them so unhappy that they resolved to treat him better, and the tests went swimmingly then they made him chunin and the resets ended and they all lived happily ever after until Akatsuki conquered the world and made them all into slaves.

The end.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

You know, I used to enjoy this story. I was riding high and having fun, with inspiration that never seemed to stop. But then the debacle of chapter twelve, where all and sundry by and large ignored the whole deal to give me a load of CRAP about a paragraph at the end of it, happened all over again with chapter twenty six where I had about a hundred different people all jumping down my throat over minor quibbles they disagreed with.

You know what? I don't care anymore.

At the point the storm of criticism ignited I decided I needed a mental health day, but no wise man does that until he's first put out the fire. So chapter twenty seven happened, explaining how I was right all along, and they should have trusted me to know what to do with my own story.

But now, I know they're lying in wait, ready to do it all over again. I used the fan-convention name for the Fourth Hokage. I like it more, and it sounds better and I'M ACTING OUT MY OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER LISTED RIGHT AT THE START, PEOPLE! IF IT GOT REVEALED POST-TIME SKIP THEN IT NEVER FRIGGING HAPPENED! AND THAT ==INCLUDES== THINGS LIKE NAMES IF I FEEL LIKE INCLUDING THEM!

No, I'm just too angry to write this story now. And I don't know if that will change, if ever. Consider this the end. I wish that was not so, but for right now... it is. Sorry.

I can't write a fun, happy fic when I'm boiling mad.


	29. Chapter 29

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Twenty Nine

by Lionheart

I I I  
Author's Prequal:  
A true-life story. At one point my father decided that he would help my mother be perfect, and the way he would do this would be to point out all of those little things in which she was not perfect, so she could correct them.

They got a divorce.

Both sides directly and frankly point to that choice of his as the cause.

I I I

The results of this news being confessed by guilty, shame-faced, remorseful clan heads in private to their own respective clans was far different to having the Hokage declare it to an angry and confused town.

The remorse felt by their own clan heads transmitted down to those who had obeyed their orders to mistreat the boy or shun him. They felt their own guilt and shame over their treatment of him, and the encouragement they gave to others to do so.

It was hard to reverse the habits of a lifetime, but slowly, as those people realized what they'd done, they began to realize just to what extent they'd hurt someone who was entirely innocent of hurting them, and the remorse began to kick in.

The first time Naruto got a shy smile from an average citizen it scared him to death.

Nothing like that had ever happened before, and he didn't know how to deal with it. It seemed far more likely to be the bait for some form of trap, and he instantly went on guard and began looking around for where the trouble was going to come from.

After shouting, "I never did anything to you!" as a way of covering himself from future blame, Naruto ran off, slightly panicked.

It made that citizen sick inside, and the many other villagers who had been watching were stunned. Had they really been so bad? Virtually all of them had heard the news of the boy's parentage by then. Most of them were unsure how they felt about it. But seeing the boy's instant defensive reaction to a simple smile was disheartening to say the least.

Hadn't anyone ever smiled to the boy before? Surely someone had. Then one little girl innocently asked, "Who?" and they were all stumped. Every one of them imagined someone else had done it at some point, but when it came right down to admitting it, none could say they'd done it, and that began to trigger a very depressing reaction, as they realized, most of them for the first time, just what a very hostile life the son of their hero had lived.

And that every one of them were partly responsible for the environment he'd grown up in, where a simple smile was so out of place as to trigger an instant fear reaction.

Their shame of having done that to him began to build.

Naruto would have cared more about this if he'd known more of what was going on. As it was, he did what he'd grown used to doing every day, and trained hard to be a better ninja.

It had been said before but really ought to be repeated. The child had no friends and no life, no hobbies, and, if it had been possible for him to learn nothing but ninja skills, he would've. All of those crafts and trades he'd picked up had been results of sheer boredom or some other pressing need.

As for friends, he had people he liked, that he even considered friends, but at the start of each repeat they'd be back to treating him they way they had before. There was no one there to really understand him, no one to relate to him, and none to just hang out with on a regular basis without tedium setting in when they didn't, couldn't, change their reactions.

Really, without something to stabilize himself, the boy was approaching burnout. He'd been under a great deal of strain through most of his life, and the resets hadn't materially improved his social standing. Even now, with most of the village beginning to feel sorrowful over their treatment of him, it did little more than wig him out.

He wasn't used to dealing with it. Didn't know how to deal with it, to be honest. So, he avoided them to bury himself in his training.

The Hokage noticed this, scrying on the boy through his crystal ball, and felt sorrow. He hadn't believed that they'd gotten to the boy to damage him so severely. But it was apparent now that they had. He'd only just missed it.

But it was night, and very late at that. Since the second stage of the chunin exams began tomorrow he'd have to wait on giving him access to his father's scrolls and property. He'd make it a surprise for the end of the second test.

At the same time he could reveal the team's new teacher.

I I I

Naruto was aiming for a Kiba-repeat, when he could hang out with the Inuzuka clan for a month or so, training under Kurenai for a reset or so, until he could face the thought of doing some wedding resets again.

However, to his surprise, although he followed the 'get Kiba as my opponent' pattern to the letter, not telling Tenten any news of the upcoming test so Sasuke would not seek out Gaara, leaving them with the Orochimaru fight and the subsequent stuff leading up to him facing Kiba...

Naruto found himself in the ring facing Sasuke for the prelims.

Sending a shocked face over to the Hokage, Naruto saw Kakashi standing there by the scoreboard, and understood.

Arashi's child had finally begun to understand more of his original teacher, as he'd had to spend enough time around the lazy ninja to do it.

Anko had been right. The man was living in his past, but while that was correct it wasn't quite all of it.

No one could deny that Kakashi was hung up on the death of his former teammate Obito. What Naruto thought was that, to Kakashi, Sasuke was a combination of Kakashi when he was young, and Obito. The lazy nin was doing his best to seek redemption for his own past by building up Sasuke, and didn't much care what it cost anyone else for him to do it. He wasn't thinking about those others, he was fixated on Sasuke.

For some reason, the man kept trying to redeem his own past mistakes, and the debt he felt he owed to Obito, by paying those off to Sasuke, making him his avatar, hoping he would fulfill the way things ought to have gone, trying to make it all right so he could forgive himself of his own mistakes.

Not that the Last Uchiha appreciated those subtleties.

In a way it was amazing how much those two were alike. It reminded Naruto of something he'd once heard, long ago in those far gone pre-reset days, that "A person all wrapped up in themselves makes a very small package."

Kakashi was fixated on his past, particularly Obito, while Sasuke was the same, also fixated on his past, although in his case it was his brother and his clan that filled every waking thought.

And both, in their own ways, were miserable and by their self-focus helping to make those around them unhappy. It wasn't as if either had made a choice to be hurting those around them, nor did either think they were all that bad. They were both inconsiderate because in their minds there was no room to consider anything outside of their narrow focus.

If you had no place in their plans then you had no value to them.

But now that Kakashi had a grudge against Naruto for denying him a chance to pander to the stuck up 'Uchiha prodigy' anymore, the jonin had evidently decided to use Sasuke as his avatar to avenge this slight as well as his past.

"Begin!" the head examiner slashed his arm down, commencing the fight.

Naruto threw down a trio of smoke grenades, hoping to cloud the area to use his jutsu without the Uchiha stealing them. However, it turned out to be better for Sasuke than for him, as none of the examiners caught the Uchiha activating the cursed seal along with the Sharingan, and Sasuke was upon him before Naruto had even got the first handseal of his next move completed.

After that, it was pretty much over.

Sasuke copied over a dozen of Naruto's ninja techniques. And because of the Sharingan's ability to predict, Naruto couldn't get away, couldn't land a hit, and couldn't complete a ninja technique unless Sasuke let him because the Uchiha wanted to copy it. Sasuke had already closed the range to fist fighting, and he'd learned enough from stealing Lee's style to make that painful.

Nor, with the cursed seal affecting his mind, was Sasuke at all restrained.

Naruto spent the rest of that day in the hospital, after having a kunai pulled out from his head. He never even got to meet his new teacher or see the scrolls his father had left him.

Then the reset happened.

I I I

Naruto had a plan.

It was an evil, awful and thoroughly wicked plan. It was NEVER something he would have condoned under any circumstances whatsoever... except this one, where the patient wouldn't even remember the harm he'd done, because it would all be undone with the next reset.

So, beat him, jail him, rob him blind, the village could all get as upset as they wanted over it. This sort of thing would guarantee his failure at the chunin exam, so it'd all be over in the morning anyway.

The plan was not very complicated. It was, however, extremely risky.

First it involved finding Kakashi. This was not hard, as the guy spent half of every day staring at a monument. In the infinite time loops since, he'd even discovered what his teacher was doing there - recalling his teammate who's death had changed him, and whose dying wish had been to give Kakashi one of his Sharingan eyes: Obito Uchiha.

He'd also discovered that bugging Kakashi for training while he was staring at the memorial stone was a sure path to pain and injury.

Bugging Kakashi for training was nothing new to Naruto, he'd done it ever since the jonin had become his official instructor. He'd chosen to do the bugging because, no matter that the man had a job to teach him, he'd never actually taught them anything, except the once with the tree climbing thing, and even then he'd just shown them that it COULD be done, then told them to do it and walked away without any explanation whatsoever.

So, in a way, as his jonin instructor, Kakashi even owed it to him.

It required something like three resets to get right. So, bright and early in the morning before the written test, Naruto headed over there and gave a hearty cry to Kakashi, calling out that he wanted training.

The blow he got would knock him out for hours.

Fortunately, Naruto had already seeded the area with clones, who watched and took notes, from several angles, on the precise nature and direction of the fully expected blow.

Why? Because it would be delivered exactly that way again after the reset, provided the other variables were kept consistent.

So, bright and early the next morning, at exactly the same time as before and following the same path, he'd called out the same words to Kakashi, to prove that he could keep all of the details consistent.

Sure enough, the blow came exactly the same way.

That set things up for the third day, where everything proceeded exactly according to the pattern set out before, only with two important differences from the last time.

The first was that it was a clone that approached and called out to Kakashi. This was because the real Naruto planned to be busy all that day and couldn't afford to be knocked out for hours. But it was impossible even for advanced bloodlines to tell the difference between the real him and a shadow clone before the first hit had landed, so that was alright.

No, it was the second change that was important. A seal painted precisely over the point of impact that released several hundred CCs of high potency knockout drugs obtained at the hospital into the jonin's system the moment he touched it.

If his Sharingan eye had been uncovered he would've noticed it, even written in orange ink that precisely matched the clone's clothing, as it was. But his eye wasn't open. As always, he'd kept his special eye covered up behind his headband until he'd thought he'd really had a use for it, and beating up an unskilled genin didn't count.

Caught entirely by surprise, the jonin dropped like a rock.

Before the cloud of smoke from the first clone's dispersal was finished, one of Naruto's other clones had performed the Body Switch technique with the fallen jonin, and used Transformation to become his virtual twin. That got the real jonin transferred to the clone's former location, safely under cover and out of sight, while the clone replacement took Kakashi's place staring at the monument and trying to disguise how bored he was.

If this was starting to sound as highly planned and orchestrated as a bank robbery that's probably because it was, and that for very good reason. He WAS going to rob Kakashi! In fact, Naruto was going to take away his most precious possession, and that wasn't his Icha Icha.

No, the genin made doubly sure his teacher was both bound and sedated, then activated his chakra scalpels and went to work extracting his Sharingan eye.

One of his clones would then do the reverse, and insert the eye into Naruto, a fairly basic part of the advanced medical training he was getting. Transplants were needed with some frequency amongst ninja, and they got to those classes early.

Naruto did this because he needed it, and his teacher would get it back after the next reset anyway. He'd literally never know he'd been missing it. The boy would never do this ordinarily, but he was beginning to feel desperate.

Because Naruto had a theory. He had no idea if it was correct or not, that's why it was a theory and not a proven fact.

It's basis was simply this: Time after time he'd witnessed Sasuke gain Lee's fighting style simply by watching him use it. That had been enough to get him curious, but on careful questioning of him later, Naruto learned that the Uchiha didn't have a proper mental grasp of all of the whys and wherefores that went into the forms, he just did them.

Like a reflex.

That thought was enough to get Naruto practically possessed for a chance to try out his idea. It could remove the one major blockage he'd encountered and set his feet once again on the path to becoming a Kage-level ninja. But he'd never acted on that because, until now, he'd never had the medical skill or chakra control to pull it off successfully.

It wasn't like he could just drag his unconscious teacher into Konoha's hospital and demand a transplant of Kakashi's eye.

The village pariah had been able to master his desire to do this until he'd largely been able to forget about it up until Sasuke had used his Sharingan against him in their last fight.

That pretty much pulled off the gloves. Sasuke wasn't on his 'nice guy' list anymore. Naruto had paid in sweat, blood and tears for those techniques, only to have the Uchiha taking them from him as if anything he wanted was his by right, just because he was an Uchiha.

So there was a bit of petty revenge in doing this, but there was also a higher purpose.

The Sharingan copied things. Everybody knew that. Training under Ebisu had made it painfully clear to Naruto that there was a world of difference between merely knowing a technique, and having fully mastered it. He'd also observed this himself directly getting beaten up by Sasuke, and when he'd seen Kakashi use copied techniques: they were far from fully mastered.

Kakashi and Sasuke didn't have to think about what they were doing when they used a copied form or technique. Nor did any of the knowledge behind them copy over. They were simply automatic.

That meant they were reflexive.

The fact that they didn't have full mastery at once suggested that copied skills were ONLY reflexes, like the Sharingan had copied those skills directly into their muscle memories. They hadn't truly learned them until they'd also mastered the mental parts.

But, the time looping boy NEEDED reflexes in order to complete or progress in many of his skills! He'd already mastered the mental parts, at least as far as he could get until he could also get the physical stuff mastered.

So, he'd needed the Sharingan, even if only to try out his little theory.

Deciding to do it after Sasuke and Kakashi had both turned against him in that test was easy. He knew of only two sources of the Sharingan, and of those two, both were vulnerable to a properly set up ambush, so both were available, but Kakashi owed him instruction and Sasuke didn't.

Besides, to avoid anyone noticing what'd happened until Naruto was finished, the boy was planning on having one of his clones impersonate the victim until that reset was over. And of the two, it was easier to stare at a rock and be lazy than it was to fight Orochimaru and deal with fangirls.

The procedure to extract one of his own eyes and implant the Sharingan was not exactly pleasant, even under sedation. Still, his healing factor kicked in right away and dealt with the headache soon enough. After that, Naruto was looking out on the world through a copycat eye.

It was weird, everything was strange when viewed through the Sharingan.

Immediately retiring to a safe place (the Forest of Death was surprisingly good for this, as no one went there casually, and the official stuff wasn't due to go there til tomorrow), the blond genin formed hundreds of clones and sat very carefully observing them while they went through his whole range of ninja techniques and martial arts moves, splayed out in such a way so that he could observe them from every angle.

It went surprisingly quickly.

Body Switch, Clone, Transformation and Body Flicker took mere seconds. Shadow Clone technique he hadn't learned anything extra on since beginning the resets. Sexy and Harem techniques were based on others he had already copied remastered versions for, but he copied them again anyway.

After that, it was a good solid hour of watching his clones perform the forms of the martial arts he knew of, all careful to do them exactly so he wouldn't be memorizing any errors, before launching into sparring.

Then they played with instruments lifted from the not yet open music shop, performed all of the stitches and hammering they knew of, and it was over, they were done. Even after repeating everything just to be sure, the whole thing had taken almost none of the time he'd imagined it would, and he could feel it taking hold.

It was a most odd sensation, hard to describe, like goo sliding down the inside of your limbs, coating your muscles from within, as the Sharingan copied those moves.

Dispersing those clones, he formed others with the new set possessing the same change he himself had just undergone. And when they fell to sparring both their minds and their bodies knew the style, making them all at least double the speed he'd been when it had merely been his mind forcing his body through the techniques.

So the experiment had been a success. And though reflexes may be recorded BY the muscles, they are recorded ON the nerves. So if the nerves of his mind could recall stuff despite a reset, then the ones in his arms and legs ought to as well.

And so it proved. It was an amazing victory.

He could never be as strong or as fast as the Uchiha was with the cursed seal on. Heck, he wasn't even the equal to many of the dedicated martial arts specialists his age! The Kyubi's 'decorating' may have given him a boost in those areas, but it had been added on top of close to nothing!

Still, having imprinted the wanted reflexes via the Sharingan had unblocked him. He could progress in music and martial arts and other physical skills again. He was even a few fractions of a second faster on his basic three ninja techniques, which, considering how fast he'd been before, squeezing even the slightest improvement out on those was quite remarkable. But he'd done it, and what's more he'd improved his ability to use those while in pain or otherwise distracted because the body could afford to do them almost on autopilot while his mind was busy dealing with those distractions.

That was about as solid as anyone could ever get those basic ninja skills to be. More would be asking for the moon.

However, it was the sudden progress of his long stagnated fighting skills that were the real source of joy to the boy. Everything he did could benefit by having better martial arts skills. It was one of those things he'd been drawn to early on, and that had consistently paid off whenever he'd been able to get any better at it.

Now, according to those fighting instructors he'd sought out so long ago, he ought to be twice as good as he'd been before, even while having the same level of knowledge. Just having his body know those moves as well as his mind did ought to double his prowess, according to them.

And, having double the top rookie genin fighting ability he'd been stuck at, ought to be enough to qualify him for about as good as a rookie chunin ought to be, taking away a major handicap from him.

Now he could work on thinking tactically because the complex motions of the actual forms, the stances, punches, blocks and so on, were automatic. His body could react faster, and could carry through on those motions without needed any input from his mind guiding them along, freeing that resource up to be plotting ahead to the next moves.

No wonder the Uchiha felt so invincible!

Suddenly saddened by that thought, Naruto considered something. He'd run through all he'd intended to do with this eye already. There was nothing else on his list, except maybe to watch his clones spar some more, but that didn't really feel productive.

Deciding to continue on with his 'foxy bits' experiments, and discovering that it was still early enough to get to the testing center if he hurried, the boy threw on a Disguise technique to look like a normal Naruto and ran off.

By tagging different people with his tail he was learning to track multiple targets simultaneously, and across wider distances. That was an experiment worth continuing, and the best, widest distributed, most interesting group to track was his fellow chunin hopefuls!

I I I

The 'loser' of Team 7 had once gotten Ebisu to admit to what ranking he had for chakra capacity, as opposed to his ever-pathetic chakra control that all of his teachers kept riding him for.

Ebisu had fought tooth and nail against telling him, fought it like he was going to die if he gave up the secret. In the end the answer came only through him tricking the teaching specialist into revealing how chakra capacity could be measured, one tidbit at a time, until he'd assembled the whole process and could measure himself.

He was Kage level, easily.

More to the point, he'd been Kage level on chakra capacity even before he'd begun the time loop he was now caught in. The amount of Shadow Clones he used alone was proof of that. What's more, this was known to every jonin, and most of the chunin, in Konoha.

Why they'd rather give up a lung than tell him, though, the blond didn't know. Maybe it was one of those laws the Hokage had passed to protect him. But maybe it was something else, or something that Kakashi had done. He didn't know. What he did know was that it was a real pain to have so little critical information concerning himself!

Maybe that whole "Know thyself and thy enemy" thing had another edge to it after all. It wasn't like the outcome of any of his fights with Orochimaru was in doubt, the sannin would always kill him and the boy would always die.

It was possible, Naruto felt, that he didn't know himself as well as he'd thought. It seemed there was always stuff about him turning up he didn't know, and he didn't know he didn't know, but that turned out to be important.

And why keep it from him, anyway? No one had any problem telling Sakura she had perfect chakra control. And if anyone even THOUGHT that the Uchiha had a Kage-level chakra capacity they'd never be able to shut up about it! It would be shouted from the rooftops and they'd probably have parades to celebrate the discovery!

But no, every teacher he'd had so far had told him how his chakra control kept him from learning this or that, but no one ever taught him the sort of things that massive chakra CAPACITY was good for!

Want someone to Body Flicker from one end of Konoha to the other without stopping in between? Fine! He could do that! He wouldn't even feel the drain. Need the Hokage monument moved west eleven feet? Teach him a technique and he'd give it a try!

But no, they didn't. Rather than lean to his strength, they endlessly used his weakness as an excuse not to teach him, mostly probably because Kakashi had told them to.

They hadn't even told him he HAD a strength! They let people like Sakura call him useless, and stood by doing nothing, as if they agreed. There had to be other people in Konoha with average chakra control, right? That's why they call it average, don't they? Because that's what most people have? So they had to have something for those ninja to do, right?

Why couldn't he do that? He'd probably be GOOD at it!

Instead he'd had to bounce around a dozen tasks he wasn't all that good at naturally, just to have something to use his time on.

Heck. The pink haired fangirl had perfect control because she had practically no chakra to begin with. It's easy to be exact with an eyedropper. On the other hand, Naruto'd been a streaming firehose. Wresting to get the thing on target at all was a major achievement, that he'd achieved something close to accuracy with it should've been celebrated as a marvelous accomplishment.

And then he'd managed to get the same level of control out of a freaking GEYSER!

He knew, he KNEW by now he had better control than Sasuke did or ever had. And he'd always had dozens of times the chakra capacity of the other guy. Yet they celebrated the Uchiha and despised him.

Oh, he knew why. The one was the precious Uchiha, the other was the demon container, the village pariah, the hated Uzumaki. Still, he'd hoped some of the jonin, at least, could look past that. But he guessed not. Not with Kakashi telling them not to, lest it 'interrupt his training' with him.

As if he'd ever taught anything.

All of this was getting rather far afield, however. Naruto had begun this time loop thing with Kage-level chakra reservoirs, but chakra was composed of mind and body energies. His mind energies stank, or had stunk. Practically all of that amazing chakra capacity had been body energy alone. And well, after he'd begun teaching himself things and overcoming mental blocks that wasn't the case anymore.

His mind energies were growing. They weren't Kage level yet, but they were getting there, and he didn't hesitate to call his purely academic ninja abilities roughly chunin level. With his physical limits the way they'd been there wasn't a great deal he could do other than to teach himself things and learn to use his mind. And what this did to his chakra reserves was predictable.

They'd been shooting up, and up, and up the entire time he'd been trapped in this loop developing his mind. He didn't have a rank for them anymore, they blew off the tops of the charts, somewhere way above Kage-level and rising with no limits in sight.

And then, of course, the Kyubi had gone and added to them.

Naruto didn't even feel the drain of having an open and active Sharingan eye as he went to rush off to the testing center.

In fact he'd forgotten all about it, so used to and conditioned by the resets to moving on past something once he'd completed his plans concerning it that it never even entered his head what to do with it after he was done.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Okay, last night I'd been feeling blocked and bitter. That let up, like dropping a stone weight, the instant after posting the last chapter, and I'd gone to bed thinking it was relief at having the whole thing over and done with.

Then I woke up this morning with the inspiration to work on it back and flowing like it hadn't since before last Friday, or so.

After two or three days of nothing, it was back. Nothing I'd done could force it to work, and suddenly there it was, working. I almost wanted to turn my muse over my knee and spank her for treating me that way.

I'd meant what I said... but, conditions changed and what I'd said no longer applies.

Thank you all for your reviews. So many were kind and gentle, or went to extra effort just to encourage me, that it surprised me to no end.

Well, some things I didn't think needed to be said. Am I a guy or a girl? I thought I'd answered that in the author's notes of chapter fourteen, when I said, "...recall you're talking to a GUY..."

Yes, I am a guy, albeit a very sensitive one who has empathy enough to know a good deal of what goes on in women's minds, so I can write about those a little more accurately than most fellows.

That any girl would care to marry me when all I've got to offer is a touch of writing talent amazes me so deeply that I haven't felt any of them could be serious in those offers.

Do I read your reviews? Yes, all of them. Every one so far, at least. And yes, I noticed I get alot. They inspire me to write more of my story. Well, most of them at any rate. There exist some people who feel a need to hurt others in their words, and that makes me unhappy. Being sensitive has two sides, one of those is very useful, as it grants you understanding, but the other simply means you are more easily hurt than most folks are.

Do I take any of my ideas from reviews? Well, sometimes. When they are offered I do try to consider them, as doing otherwise just seems rude, as when you send them to me that seems an awful lot like offering a gift, and turning down gifts is very rude. But though I note most of them I can actually incorporate only a few. Some contradict my own plans, others match them up so precisely I do not have to change anything to include them, as it is just as if they knew where I was already going. A few that fall in between are just a touch trickier. If they fall on blank spots in my own plans, well, blank spots can always be filled. And some suggestions add touches or details to what I was already going to do that I hadn't yet thought of, so those are easy to include.

And, like I said, it just seems rude to turn them down without considering them. A golden few have proved so useful that I've copied and pasted them into my notes file for later use as is, but most require some modifications to fit. Those who've seen their work used thus generally know who they are.

And I'd like to thank all of them again for their contributions.

Several have asked about a potential sequel, and I will give you my thoughts on this: I don't know.

Now, according to my only reliable source of Japanese mythology, they had this to say "Once more "The Legend of the tailed beasts" is fake, a fan created it."

So that's what we're going to go with on this subject. End of story.

Thank you, Yuki No Uta.

And to all the rest of you, thank you all and I hope you each have a very merry new year! (even if this wish is a little late in getting to you)


	30. Chapter 30

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto barely got to the building on time for his usual arrival, which meant that he'd had no time to do all of those useful pre-arrival things like get to Hinata-chan and make her blush, visit the Hokage to wheedle out the Uchiha estate, and so on.

But still, on time was on time, and he didn't have to get those things.

Luckily Sakura was too busy cooing over Sasuke to glare at him, as he wasn't all THAT late. So they went into the building together, breezed by those two chunin with the disguised door (and Naruto, already having the Disguise and Veil techniques they were using, didn't even notice the slight 'pudding down my limbs' sensation caused by seeing them), and were on their way to the room they were after when Lee appeared to give his challenge to Sasuke.

That's right. No Hinata this morning, so that meant Lee would proceed with his challenge against Sasuke, trying to prove that hard work was superior to being a genius.

Sasuke got most of his later accomplishments in martial arts out of this fight. His skills were solidly genin before this, and didn't impress Orochimaru no matter how ticked off Naruto got him. The jerk had stolen Lee's pride and joy, his fighting style, then renamed it and used it as if it was his own.

Naruto had also copied a few moves out of this fight, which was impressive, as he'd never had the Sharingan...

The sole blond present stood frozen as Lee finished off his fight sequence, and when he recovered from his shocked and frozen state he started to inwardly berate himself.

Darn it! Now he was getting as bad as Sasuke! It was one thing to copy Lee's moves when he was just using hard work. The chakra-disabled ninja respected nothing like he respected that. Hard work was what he lived for! But to steal those hard won abilities using a bloodline, that was just cheating!

And Naruto had forgotten until that fight was over that he'd had a Sharingan up and active!

Inside himself, the blond resolved to make this up to Lee somehow, and as some of his most recent advances were in the fiend of medicine, he chose to try the impossible - he would reconstruct Lee's chakra coils so the brave, if odd, green-clad genin could mold chakra as well as anyone else!

One of his medical instructors had actually used Lee's case as an example of procedures too dangerous to pursue, granting him only a one in ten thousand chance of being cured, even using dangerous, experimental techniques.

Naruto drew in a deep breath and firmed up his resolve, promising himself that he could do it anyway. After all, if it took him ten thousand resets to get that ten thousand to one chance, in the end he'd still learn how to do it!

The clone shapeshifted into Kakashi's form met them all at the door, gave them Kakashi's lines in a very Kakashi manner, then disappeared off to go follow Kurenai to what he assumed was the jonin lounge.

Smirking, Naruto sent a few fox shaped clones throughout the class as the chunin hopefuls were milling about before Ibiki called them all to order. Then, once everyone was in their seats and he and Hinata were noisily making out at the front of the class, tests already completed, the explosive tags those clones had set on certain chairs went off, catapulting Kabuto and others out of their blast zones, overturning desks and raining debris over a wide area.

The silver haired traitor had gotten embedded in the ceiling, neck broken, but living. Many of the other hopefuls were also in critical condition.

But they were all very bad people.

Laughing inside, Naruto went off to the hospital as a 'concerned friend' with Kabuto too out of it to say otherwise. The unconscious traitor was not able to use his regeneration technique, so by staying by the side of him, as well as Kabuto's team and other casualties, Naruto was able to observe close at hand while the Konoha medics used a wide assortment of emergency medical jutsu to stabilize the wounded.

Then, by impersonating a nurse, he was able to observe them throughout surgery, and then beyond, picking up a complete inventory of techniques of which he'd known the theory for simply years, but hadn't yet mastered as far as the practical side of things.

Flitting in and about as they treated the host of wounded, plus the ordinary flow of that hospital they'd normally see, Naruto's education into the medical arts expanded by leaps and bounds.

Assuming the identity of a female doctor to walk out of the place, Naruto even got drafted to help on the still critical rush of wounded, and found him/herself using those techniques on the female genin from Sound, who'd had a substantial portion of her ribcage crushed and pelvis shattered, with some possible damage to the spine.

Figuring the worst he/she could do would be kill her, and that the Sound genin was an enemy anyway (and thus, it would be no shame if she died), Naruto set about using those techniques she had recently caught.

It turned out to be an enlightening experience. The Sound genin even lived though his/her efforts.

From the successful effort, the disguised young boy then got drafted in to help on other cases, getting more surgical assignments and assisting with even better doctors, until he'd spent the whole afternoon under cover at the hospital learning what they did there to treat injuries.

It was not all chakra control, or even book knowledge. Knowing what he did about anatomy helped more than he would've supposed, but his experience so far had always been with girls whose skins had been intact, and they looked really different on the inside.

They were filled with icky goo, for the most part. Not very pretty at all.

Still, having his cherry popped as an emergency medic, so to speak, the boy dragged himself home to sleep long and hard, only to be woken in the morning by Sakura, who'd been worried over not seeing him after the test the other day, and so come to check on him to make sure he got to the second test on time.

That was a first.

"Wait a minute," Naruto sat up, rubbing at his eyes. "You mean I actually PASSED?"

"What with all that was going on, the head examiner didn't give the tenth question," Sakura blurted, shoving his clothes at them, then locking him in his bathroom. "You scored nine out of nine, although how you did it is beyond me. I was certain those questions were above you."

"I cheated off of Hinata," he answered absently, getting dressed as quickly as possible. He'd have to use a camping jutsu to bathe later on, when he had more time.

He still could hardly believe he'd passed. That had not been his intention. He'd just filled in those answers as usual to avoid stressing out Hinata, then gone off with those medics to pirate some healing skills.

Apparently things got resolved favorably in his absence. He'd not been expecting it.

Pausing, the boy's eyes lit up. If they were going to the forest, that meant they'd soon be fighting against Orochimaru! Oh yeah! He could use this new advantage to see through some of the snake freak's ninja techniques, and Naruto had absolutely no problem stealing from an enemy!

Hmm, that meant there were one or two other fights in that forest he really ought to get an eye on. And, knowing the various times during which those happened, having observed them all at least once before, he could do it if he gave a prodigious waste of chakra on Body Flickers!

Hehehehe! 'Sprinkling Rain' of senbon needles, here we come!

I I I

By the time the preliminary tests arrived, Naruto was feeling bloated. He'd stolen techniques from half of the chunin hopefuls, some of those by accident as they'd been used by Konoha ninja fighting outright enemies of Konoha, and somehow he was planning to make those up to them... somehow.

The boy wrote himself a blanket check, saying within himself that saving the village from the upcoming invasion would cover those thefts from Konoha, although how he was going to repay Kankuro for stealing that illusion he used to disguise his puppet as himself, was a puzzle.

Actually, there was more to it than that, as he'd quite by accident stolen most of the puppet user's basic arsenal while they'd been fighting other teams. More than he'd gotten out of the boy during conversation, anyway.

How he was going to make that up to the older boy he didn't know, so he chalked it up as a debt to be paid and resolved to think more on it later.

Now he had to get himself a fan like Temari had. Those moves of hers were cool! And, speaking as her husband (even if that wasn't true in this reset) he felt he had a right to her techniques, so long as he shared his in return.

That was fair, wasn't it?

Then the prelim fights started, and Naruto gazed intently on that guy who drained chakra, knowing as he did so how useful that technique would be to defeat Neji, if he ever had to fight the Hyuga genius again, which was likely.

It wasn't unavoidable. Drawing numbered stones out that bag to determine who fought who in the first rounds of the finals gave him just enough control to influence that to be fighting someone else. And then the invasion would happen to curtail any further matches.

But still, having the ability to do so at need gave him a better chance to avenge Hinata without getting beaten up himself.

He didn't learn much from watching the chakra draining genin, what the guy did was mostly safe from the Sharingan, but that was okay. He'd learned enough that with a lot of hard work, maybe he could reconstruct that technique himself from scratch.

Then Naruto peered, watching VERY closely as Hinata fought her cousin Neji, cheering on his pale haired beloved until she fought with the best she had. She'd lose, she always did in these prelims fighting against her cousin, but with what he'd learned by watching her, Naruto could now be far more confident of his ability to impersonate her should she need a stand-in in future matches, like he'd done with her at their wedding.

And he also got to analyze Neji's style, and perhaps he could learn later how to train her to fight against it. Naruto couldn't use the Gentle Fist style, as it required their bloodline, but...

A wicked gleam came to the blond boy's eyes.

He'd never be as strong or as fast as the real close combat fighters who had trained for this all of their lives, the resets made that impossible. But the 'push chakra out through your fingers' part of the Gentle Fist style just sounded like a good chakra control exercise that ought to benefit him whether or not he could make anything else of it.

And, bloodlines could be stolen, couldn't they? I mean, there he was watching this fight through a Sharingan eye!

He was going to be doing the research on bloodline theft just because Tenten had asked him to, that reset where they'd gotten married. And, so long as he was going to be a donor, granting his gifts to his wives, then MAYBE Hinata, once she had his regeneration, wouldn't mind letting him and her sister wives have her bloodline too?

Hmm, that could be dead useful. No need to trick people into being anatomy models for one, or playing around with corpses or whatever those medics did to get their first hand knowledge of internal anatomy. They can't ALL have started that side of their studies with their hands already on a desperately wounded patient, could they?

No, they couldn't. It wasn't possible.

Naruto had tried learning his operating on clones, but that was useless, as they vanished the moment their bodies got disrupted.

However, the boy's planning got cut short, as the head examiner called out the next match. Between all those he'd wounded with tags previous to this, and the consequent mix up of losses in the forest, there had been an unequal number of strong versus weak chunin hopefuls arrived to the preliminaries, and the Hokage thought he was being kind to Naruto, giving him his own weak opponent so he'd have a chance to advance to the finals.

Too bad that 'weak' opponent chosen for him was Lee.

After having been beaten about by a wrecking ball moving at pinball speeds, Naruto decided that it was probably for the best, as the Sharingan was just WAAAY too addictive, and considering what he knew of those who had it, if he'd kept it for much longer it would obviously make him stupid, or at least lazy.

Meanwhile, the Kakashi clone had been having a somewhat interesting week. All he'd had to do was disguise a science text in an orange cover and no one looked at him at all funny when he was reading in public.

Okay, they looked at him funny, but it was a 'How dare you, you pervert!' sort of funny, instead of a 'why is he doing that?' sort of funny. People knew why Kakashi did that. It was because he was pervy!

So at least the week hadn't been a total loss, as he'd gotten some good reading done.

Naruto had had to replace the clone impersonating Kakashi at least once a day, more if it had used any techniques, but considering how lazy that jonin was, it had been easy enough not to most of the time, and he'd gotten to learn tons of things while doing it!

For example, the clones tending the real Kakashi in the cave in which they'd kept him had gotten to see the guy's face under that mask he perennially wore. Not that it was all that interesting, you had the outline just glancing at the guy through the thin material. But still, it was an interesting goal to have achieved, just to say you'd done it.

He'd also learned more about where the jonin lived, and while Naruto had a place he'd made nice inside of a dump, his teacher was the opposite, living in a nice place that he'd made into a dump through laziness and not caring.

Still, he'd gotten to see the broken bits of the famous sword of Kakashi's father, and that the jonin had broken carelessly.

Actually, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that jonin lived a depressing life, and what made it worse to consider was the guy had basically chosen for it to be that way!

When Team 7 had arrived out of the forest, 'Kakashi' had gotten called upon to put a restraining seal on over the one Orochimaru had placed on Sasuke. Picking the most likely seeming one he knew of from the ANBU files, 'Kakashi' had taken Sasuke aside to the room he knew the original always used, and began to emplace the seal, tapping into a hidden bag of pig's blood to use to write them, rather than cutting his own finger, because, as a clone, he knew that cutting his own finger would dispel him.

He was basically done with the design, fascinated to watch the several yards across diagram pick itself up to compress into a much smaller space, and the possible extraneous uses for that, when Orochimaru appeared, gloating.

And those boasts he made were very enlightening.

I I I

"So, how do you get two piccolo players to play in tune?" Naruto/Sasuke asked at his free, complimentary music lesson.

"You shoot one of the piccolo players," the music teacher told him with a smile. "Now let us go back to fingering those keys."

I I I

"You know, honestly, it never struck me before," the music teacher looked at the all-piccolo band of some thirty or so Naruto's, who were, incidentally, all playing in tune with one another. "That all you'd really need is thirty or so of the same piccolo player."

I I I

Naruto skipped down the street, laughing loudly.

He really loved having Kurenai as a teacher, he really did. Unfortunately, she was too fair a teacher for his purposes, as, after having spent one month long repeat with her learning all he could, when the next time to be her student came around she carefully tested his knowledge, then told him frankly it would only take her a little over a month to bring her team up to speed with him, and that after that she'd prefer to teach them all together.

Naruto was crushed. But she wasn't going to play favorites, and her team ought to know this information, too.

In a bunch of ways he could admire and respect her for it, and only wish his own instructor had been half that even handed. But for his purposes it was awfully inconvenient, to say the least.

Still, inconvenient was among the least of his woes.

Naruto found he was fighting HARD against the lure of the Sharingan. He'd never have believed it, but that thing was like a drug, once you'd had it, there was this intense desire for MORE OF IT!

He'd caught himself planning for more repeats like that last one, where he'd gone around behind a Sharingan eye learning more than he'd ever done before - and at the same time horrified by how much he wanted this, because he knew, he KNEW that having mastered those techniques you already had made you a better and more effective ninja...

But at the same time he felt this huge desire to forget about mastering any of this most recent haul and just go out rampantly stealing any and all techniques he could get anyone to demonstrate for (or even against) him, thinking about people he could attack and FORCE to use moves on him!

And that desire scared him. It came out of nowhere, and it was as much as he could do sometimes to stop himself from going up to Kakashi to bonk him on the head to pluck out and use that eye again.

He'd even felt such an urge in public, before witnesses!

He'd burgled enough houses during his catburglar days to know that some things you got away with when no one was looking were just plain out when they were! He KNEW better than that!

But this urge to pluck out and stick in another Sharingan was overpowering, and for that he gradually grew terrified of it, concerned because if he did this again, he might not be able to stop doing it always.

And being a prisoner to his own urges was just WRONG! He, who already had a prisoner in his body thank you very much, didn't want to be another! He didn't want to join the Kyubi in being enslaved to a body he was no longer master of!

And so, much as it had helped him, the boy resolved to avoid the Sharingan in the future. It just got too dangerous. Those desires to make him keep it were very nearly overwhelming to the boy, and he didn't dare to risk any further temptation!

He'd have to quit cold-turkey, at least until he'd found a way to beat these desires for good.

And, while that was a disappointment in some ways, it was less so than it might have been. He'd already caught up on body skills to where his mind had gotten. He could sew, hammer or spar far more easily than before, as his body just took over on autopilot, needing only occasional direction from his brain. The same went for his techniques, and many of his basic ones were now up to where they'd be considered perfect - no improvement possible.

And speaking of the Kyubi, the old vixen had healed up considerably the last time he'd checked on her. Oh, sure, she was still pretty beat up, but nothing like she had been. The rents in her coat had mostly closed now, and her rate of healing had accelerated, as if she had crossed some threshold from barely hanging on to 'getting better now'.

So it looked like he'd have someone to talk to soon, at any rate.

Of course, for the immediate present, he had techniques to perfect, LOADS of them! He'd never even have guessed how many spying techniques were being used during that written test, Anko's entrance had contained a very highly skilled acrobatic maneuver that took more talent than he would've initially believed. Then there was the not-to-be-overlooked way that Lee fought, or what he'd picked up from Gai that time he'd stopped his prize pupil from pulverizing Sasuke.

He owed it to those two to pick up as much of the mental aspect of their art as they would let him. It was only fair to figure out WHY you moved this way instead of that, and all of those niggling little details. It was their art, after all, and they were FAR from his enemies, so that meant he had to respect how they wanted their art to be seen and used.

He wasn't about to run about wearing green spandex, but putting in some hard work as a tribute to their own was the least of what he could do.

Then, of course, there were all of those lovely little ninja techniques that he'd picked up from observing those foreign shinobi fight during the forest part of the exam.

AND! Not to be overlooked, all of those combat teachers he'd originally impersonated Sasuke to approach, were now approachable! He could get new people to teach him again!

Oh yes! He had good cause to cackle as he bounded merrily along!

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Sometimes you just gotta write, y'know? I mean, your muse sneaks up behind you in the shower and bonks you on the head, drags you naked before your keyboard and shackles you to the desk!

Maybe that's why I love her so.


	31. Chapter 31

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty One

by Lionheart

I I I

At their first morning date, which was now a picnic under the clouds amidst the trees (with several curious kunoichi spying from nearby bushes) Naruto turned to the lavender haired girl beside him and clasped her hands within his own, gazing fondly into her eyes to ask, "Hinata-chan, can I share with you a secret, a very special secret?"

Her breath caught and quickened, a blush seizing her features, but she nodded, desperately happy.

Seeing what she thought he was about to confess he smiled. "Yes, Hinata-chan, I do love you. But there will be time to talk of that later. Can I tell you something else? Something that may be hard to believe?"

A wide, shy, disbelieving yet happy face had seized upon her features, but she rallied herself, determined to be there for him, and nodded once again.

Naruto sighed. He'd tried this a few times recently with the Hokage - trying to convince the man of what was truly happening to him. But it had failed. Heck, he'd tried on his very first day to convince him! Often since that time he'd thought over how he might do it better. Now was a good chance to try.

He went from holding Hinata's hands in his to holding her close to him. The kunoichi concealed among the trees all cooed at the scene, but it allowed him to whisper into her hair so no one overheard. "You know that sealing scrolls and summon techniques all do stuff with space time?"

She nodded, barely perceptibly. If he hadn't been holding her he would have missed it, but he could almost feel her curiosity over where he was going with this.

So he did his best to satisfy that. "Something happened to me, an accident, I don't really know. But one of those space time jutsus went way wrong with me, not just a little wrong but big time. You see," he took a deep breath to steady himself before this admission. The last times he'd tried to explain this to her, back before he'd memorized the answers to the test, she'd never been able to believe him.

And it hurt. Oh! How it had hurt!

Shudderingly slightly, he made his admission. "Hinata-chan, every day I wake up it is the same as it was yesterday, and the same it will be tomorrow. I always wake up on the morning of the first test of the chunin exam, and the whole day plays itself over exactly as it did before, unless I change it. I'm caught in a time loop, where all of my tomorrows are the same as my yesterdays, and each and every morning is the start of the chunin exam."

She trembled within his arms, not knowing what to say. She felt him. He was close to her and she could feel he was hurting over this, so she believed he was serious, it all just came at her so unexpectedly! She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to comfort him.

But then she knew. She simply hugged him back, laid her head on his shoulder, and whispered back, "I believe you."

He nearly broke down crying on the spot.

A soft sigh of romantic fondness echoed from a dozen or so kunoichi's throats over this tender moment. Most expected him to pull out a ring and put it on her finger, and were disappointed when that didn't happen.

I I I

"So..." she paused nervously playing her fingers together, after they had found some privacy and he'd begun his explanations. "We... we helped you with... your medical studies?"

Her face was a dark, dark red, and she'd already fainted a couple of times, but he'd always revived her.

Naruto nodded, putting an arm behind his head to rub the back of his neck. "Yeah. When I first asked you, you fainted, and woke up disappointed you were still wearing clothes." She blushed bright scarlet, but he did the gentle thing of pretending not to notice. "Anko stripped down and posed just to see me blush. Tenten undressed like it was an everyday event, but I caught a few hints that it was anything but, and she was thinking of very naughty stuff. And when I asked Temari she did a sexy strip and tried to jump me. Since her brother has scared every guy in town away she was saying she'd probably die a virgin if she doesn't take any opportunity she can get."

"E... every opportunity?" Hinata stuttered, scarlet.

"So far I was her first, opportunity that is, or so she said, not that anything actually happened," Naruto chuckled. "I was too busy wanting to get through my study material and get the medical skill I wanted."

"Did... did you see Ayame of Ichiruku's Ramen Stand nude too?" the shy Hyuga heiress stuttered out.

Naruto blinked several times in surprise. "You know, I'd forgotten all about that place?"

All of the blood flushed from Hinata's face. "Either you aren't Naruto, or you have been trapped in that loop for a long time. How could you have forgotten her? She's been very nice to you."

The boy shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, Hinata, I just did. I used to eat ramen all the time, every day. But with everything else the same I had to get some variety, so after Ino started to teach me how to cook, well, I haven't had a ramen since!"

Suddenly stern and finding her backbone, Hinata grabbed Naruto's hand and marched him off to go eat ramen with her at Ichiruku's stand. There she piped up to the serving waitress, "Excuse me, Ichiruku-san, but Naruto is studying to be a medic-ninja. We were wondering if, after our ramen, you could help him learn to give an exam?"

Ayame stopped in her tracks, staring at the determined girl. "You've already helped him?"

Turning solid scarlet, Hinata nodded, sucking in her bottom lip and very nearly passing out.

"Wow!" Ayame stood there blinking in surprise. Then she tilted her head in suspicion of the young blond boy. "Are you sure you're studying to be a medic-ninja?"

Naruto shrugged. "And nurse and midwife, too. Full medic ninja is something that will have to wait until I have better chakra control. But, well, here..."

He held out a hand, fluctuating with blue energy as he didn't presently have his limiters on, and explained, "This is the standard Chakra Scalpel technique, used for performing surgery without breaking the skin, every medic ninja has to know this one. Only, as you can see, mine is alternating between surges and dips, with no way of telling which is which. I could hit someone with it in combat and not hurt him or try to remove a wart and blow someone's head clean off. So it's not very useful, not until I have a lot more experience."

Ayame and Hinata were both staring at his technique. Both were impressed, although Hinata felt more vindicated, while Ayame was more surprised. "Wow!" the daughter of the ramen stand owner said. "You really are learning how to be a medic!" She sounded joyful, and turned to beam a smile on him. "Sure! I'll be glad to help you! Wait just one minute, you finish up your ramen and I'll nip out back. Follow me when you're done, ok?"

I I I

Naruto walked out of the back of the ramen stand, face aflush and flaming. "You know," he told Hinata. "It's different when someone else is there trying to help you by pointing out all of the other girl's bits."

"I know..." Hinata played with her fingertips. "But I just wanted to make sure you knew what was there, and..." Actually, what she'd wanted was to confirm his statement about knowing those sorts of things. So she'd pushed the envelope a bit, and even she had to admit she had probably gone too far.

But then, having three hundred and sixty degree x-ray vision did not lead to a great deal of ignorance about basic physiology, and she'd wanted to know how much HE knew!

"And it got so different from usual when you took off your own clothes and the two of you started to use the other as anatomy models for me. I just don't know how I should take that, is all." Naruto was shaking his head.

Hinata had always seemed so much more shy than that.

"Well, it only seemed fair..." the lavender-haired heiress mumbled softly, pushing her fingers together some more.

A moment later she ventured, "Did... did you get all of the measurements that you wanted?"

"Yah," Naruto nodded his head, still in somewhat of a daze. "I did. Though why you insisted on you both receiving the full spa treatment while I got her measured for new clothes..."

"..." The girl looked shyly down to her fingers, blushing rose. In truth, she'd wanted to know what that was like, and it had seemed unfair to deny it to Ayame-san too, especially since they were there for her exam in the first place. And it was her house, so it seemed only polite.

And somehow the Hyuga girl felt so VINDICATED that she'd been right about the value and worth of her Naruto-kun all along when that nice ramen girl started to cry out marriage proposals to him at the top of her lungs.

She probably shouldn't have enjoyed it so much, but she had. Hinata felt all aglow with righteous vindication in that she'd been right to love Naruto all along. She'd even been there to witness another girl approve of him!

And there was something else to consider too, in that having been naked before him, and having put his hands all over her, had greatly reduced the Hyuga girl's shyness towards him.

Although the present circumstances were so awkward it was hard to tell.

In truth, all she wanted right then was another pelvic exam, or another set of breast palpitations, or both. Both. And a massage. Mmm, yes, another massage, one with the body oil again. Although she felt too awkward to ask.

"You... you do promise to fine tune all of her clothes later?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll spent the next reset or two on it," Naruto agreed.

"And did you enjoy the ramen?" She turned the subject away from those presently causing her flaming blush.

The village pariah grinned. "Yah. I did. It brought back some memories of old times. Ones that were actually good."

I I I

"Hey, Tenten!" Naruto called out to the girl right before they could see her out where she was practicing. But before she'd turned around, they were in view. "I know what your secret desire is, and I'm going to give it to you!"

The girl gave a negative smirk, turning back to her throwing. "You know, that's a lousy pick up line. And what's worse is you shouldn't be trying to pick up more girls when you've already got one."

She'd noticed him and Hinata holding hands.

"Oh, but it wasn't a pick-up line," he told her with a glad grin. "I'm only trying to prove to Hinata that I have more knowledge than she could give me credit for, in order to prove a more wild theory to her."

The weapons mistress turned back to face them, blinking. "Okay, so what is my secret desire?"

I I I

"This is Lead, request radio check and status."

"This is Unit 1, check. I'm in position."

"Unit 3, in position. Target in sight, check."

"Uh... Unit 2, I guess. Give me another minute."

"Target in motion!" Unit 3 called out suddenly.

"Bearing and speed?" Lead demanded sternly.

"Lost visual, it's looking... Dang! A fox has gotten it!"

The jonin gave a heavy sigh as his genin team lost it "All units, report back to base. And Chichi, YOU'RE the one who has to tell the Fire Lord's wife that you let her cat get eaten."

"Aww!" the genin girl whined miserably. "That is so unfair!"

Elsewhere, Naruto, in fox form, trotted boldly out of the woods and placed the dead pet of the Fire Lord's wife before Tenten's waiting hands, where she been kneeling beside Hinata, waiting for him. The girl giggled, a smile on her cheeks. "Okay," she laughed. "You're right. I'd never admitted that to anyone, but after our first mission to retrieve that blasted cat, when she tore up one of my favorite dresses, I've always nurtured a secret desire to see her dead. You got me. That was it, my secret desire - and you filled it!"

As a few of Naruto's clones, also in fox form, dragged the cat off into the bushes to consume it (waste not, want not, and the ability to become a cat could prove useful, so learning it's internal anatomy was a must - besides, to a fox' taste buds, cat was delicious), the girl picked up Naruto-fox and began to cuddle him. As she petted him, she asked, "So what is this big secret you're trying to prove to Hinata?"

I I I

"Hi honey, I'm home!" Naruto called out as he threw open the door wide and entered the Inuzuka family clinic.

Hana got the surprise of her life as her brushing of her dog got interrupted by the blond haired boy coming inside, picking her up using HER CLAN'S Beast Mimicry technique to grant his muscles the strength to do it, dropped a kiss right on her (and just the way she liked it), rubbed shoulders with her in the clan way, then went further and placed his blunt teeth softly on her neck in the manner of an alpha, displaying dominance over her.

Then he gave her the sniff of a MATE!

If she wasn't so stunned she could hardly think she would've killed him for that!

Her hand came up anyway, grabbing him around the throat and lifting him off of the floor. She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, a pair of girls, probably genin by the looks of them, hanging out in the door watching this. "Okay, brat! You've got about five seconds to explain what you're up to before I break your neck!"

I I I

"Naruto!" Hana shouted out, awash in pleasure, before surging up off of the couch and grabbing him by his lapels. "Marry me!"

"Of course, I'd love to," he agreed demurely, setting aside the massage oil to take her in a hug, giving a wink to the clones in the background who went on playing soft music in the string quartet they had formed. The clones in the kitchen went on smugly cooking food while those presently designing her outfits amid the scented candles paused to give each other quiet nods.

The other two girls receiving similar treatments to the Inuzuka clan heiress also lazily murmured out their own marriage proposals.

"But I've got a secret to share that you may find hard to believe," he shook his head sadly still giving her a hug. "In fact, no one else has believed without some form of strong proof of my knowing things I shouldn't."

I I I

"Hi gramps!" Naruto wandered into the Hokage's office, Hinata in tow, as she had wanted to see this part. The trio from Sand, Kankuro, Gaara and Temari followed in moments after, with a wide-eyed Tenten and Hana following later.

"Ah, Naruto." The old man took his pipe out and smiled. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Arashi's child pointed a thumb to Gaara, who was coming up disturbingly close to the blond haired genin, and seemed... possessive, as if he was a child who had just discovered teddy bears. "This is Gaara, the demon container of the one tailed raccoon. He and his team are the lead elements of an invasion planned to destroy Konoha so the lord of their country would stop sending ninja assignments our way instead of theirs."

Sarutobi's recently replaced pipe fell out of his mouth as he dropped it open in shock.

"Remember, you promised to play 'skip rope' with me after we confessed the Kazekage's plans to break our treaty and destroy your village," the redhaired psychopath whispered in low and deadly tones. "Do not forget."

"Looking forward to it!" Naruto shot the other container a 'nice guy' pose with a thumbs up and toothy grin, even getting the glint to appear just right.

That time studying under Lee and Gai was just too cool for words! Just as outgoing as he was, just as bold and unashamed of themselves and the way they did things, they were like the family he'd never had, or something!

But Gaara hadn't gotten to play any of those 'normal kid' games any more than Naruto had, so it was a simple matter to invite him to a few, and after playing jacks and hopscotch and a few ball games, earning his friendship for life, convince him to confess the invasion plans to the Hokage in return for a few more.

Heck! Naruto enjoyed those as much as Gaara did!

"Oh, and by the way," the blond put his hands on his hips, directing a question to the old man, "Wasn't the Fourth Hokage my father?"

Sarutobi fell out of his chair.

I I I

Sarutobi's face grew grave. "That... is a very interesting problem, Naruto. Can you offer me any proof?"

"Although..." the Hokage looked out the window. There were ninja running all over Konoha right now like a disturbed wasp nest, but he had elected to hear more of the boy's story.

And what a story it was!

Naruto rolled his eyes, kicking back in Hana's lap on the big loveseat he had unsealed from out of a scroll, Hinata on his right and Tenten on his left, with Temari seated on the footrest, holding his feet in her lap and wondering what to do with herself.

The boy was literally awash in girls.

Heaving a sigh, Naruto told him, "Gramps, I've been over this a time or two with you before now. Nothing I've said could convince you, and it's not like I can take a note back with me. Nothing physical changes. What WOULD you accept as proof?"

Sarutobi rocked back into his seat, sucking intently on his pipe for a few moments as he silently devoted himself to thought. "That was an interesting question, Naruto. It's a pity you don't know any of the higher level illusions. There are some that could be used to share a person's memories."

"Really?" The boy shot up out of his very plush chair and was hanging off of the Hokage's every word. "Who can teach them? Can you send me off to learn those? Huh? PLEASE!"

The Hokage was a little surprised at the boy's reaction. So he asked, "Why so eager to give me proof, Naruto? With this information, we can foil the invasion either way."

But the boy was vigorously shaking his head. "NO! You don't understand! If I had some way to share memories, I could be giving other people their own sets of experiences from previous resets. I could have FRIENDS! Friends who remembered me! I wouldn't be all alone anymore!"

Sarutobi sighed. He hated to disappoint the boy. He lay aside his pipe and said, "I'm sorry, Naruto, but those illusions are only useful for sharing your own experiences. To share someone else's memories, you'd first have to acquire them yourself, and only the Yamanaka clan techniques..."

The Hokage realized he was talking to an empty office.

I I I

"You!" Naruto threw open the door to the Yamanaka family flower shop and pointed a finger at Ino. "I need your clan techniques!"

The girl smirked, smug in her reply, not pausing in arranging some flowers for sale. "Sorry, but not going to happen! They are for our clan members only, Naruto. No exceptions."

Although she felt quite flattered that he would ask. There had been times lately when she'd wondered what good they were, as she wasn't turning out to be a very strong ninja.

The boy didn't even have to think about it for a second before approaching and pressing himself nose to nose with her. "Marry me."

"Eww!" Ino shoved him away. "No way! Why would I want you when I could have someone like Sasuke?"

I I I

Ino groaned in pleasure as one Naruto massaged her back while another ran brushes with scented oils through her hair, as a third measured her foot for the shoes she was to be wearing, thoughts of seducing the young tailor going through her mind.

Sasuke? Sasuke who? Who was he and what did he matter? The best catch in all of Konoha was making her outfits right now!

"Naruto," she murmured out, awash in pleasure. "Will you marry me?"

The other four girls present, some of them undergoing this for the second or third time that day, groaned out their own agreements.

"Of course, I'd love to," he agreed demurely. "But I wouldn't want to feel an outcast on the inside," he murmured. "I've already had enough of that from the rest of Konoha. So really I couldn't agree unless I was going to be taught the clan techniques."

"Here, you form this handseal..." the girly puddle of pleasure demonstrated.

Outside, some Naruto clones were playing jumprope with Gaara while ninja ran all about Konoha in somewhat of a panic over the upcoming invasion by Sand.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Sorry, RL interrupted. I had to host a party last night, otherwise this would have been out yesterday. But between all that had to happen, it was only half completed before I got to it today.

For anyone who is interested, my muse is named Rei Hino. And she's sweet and adorable most of the time, just a wee tad... forceful, some others. Not kinky, just not concerned with my convenience sometimes, waking me up in the dead of night because there was a chapter I had not finished, and so on.

But she's a hard working, diligent little muse, is my lovely Sailor Mars.


	32. Chapter 32

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Two

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto had always wanted to wear the Hokage's hat.

Now he had become it.

It was a simple way of spying on the old man as the day of the chunin finals arrived, as at some point the old guy was going to die, and he hoped to avoid that in future resets by replacing him so that it would be a clone of Naruto under a shapeshift that Orochimaru ambushed instead of the actual Hokage.

Of course, as hard to convince as the Hokage could be of this outlandish story, the only methods to pulling that off were either to take out the old guy himself, knocking him out to stick in a closet somewhere to wait until the bad parts had passed, which did NOT sound fun or easy (on a scale with taking down Orochimaru, actually - and worse in that it could involve hurt feelings after the fact, or failure and exile before it), or, better yet, show him enough evidence to convince him.

And Naruto's ideal method for convincing Sarutobi both that the danger he was in and what Naruto was undergoing was real would be to show him the actual fight between himself (the Hokage) and Orochimaru.

Of course, to show him such a thing first required Naruto to acquire it.

Not the least of those barriers was that same one - convince the Hokage.

Of course, he should have remembered to eat, as during the long wait for Sasuke to show up for his fight, Naruto's tummy rumbled. The young boy was in the act of wondering HOW it had done so when he was presently a hat atop the Hokage's head, and didn't currently HAVE a stomach, when the shocked Hokage reacted with the instant response of a highly trained ninja and struck his cap, knocking the shapeshifted boy out.

Naruto woke up in his apartment again and sighed, then brightened, jumping out of bed to split into thousands of clones, some select few of which sped out across town to visit certain young ladies in their beds.

The month leading up to that reset had been pretty good, actually.

He'd done his best to make it so.

Ino had taught him what she knew, but she didn't know much compared to the total of her family's mind techniques. But that was okay, Naruto had taken what she'd taught him as a starting off point and invented the rest of what he needed.

The Hokage had been very generous in allowing him access to Kurenai's time, even though the illusion specialist was very needed for the upcoming assault. All of the jonin had been called on, until some were nearly worn ragged by the preparations they'd had to make.

Luckily, Sarutobi knew that, and had proclaimed a mandatory few days near the end there for overworked, overstressed ninja to relax a bit to regain the fighting form they'd lost during the prep times.

It hadn't changed the result any, but it'd been a nice gesture, very thoughtful of the old man.

Actually, Naruto had only gotten any of Kurenai's time at all by proclaiming that the Hokage needn't put him on any kind of priority list at all.

Naruto had been kicking back in the old man's office, relaxed when no one else in Konoha was. Teachers were teaching their students at a feverish pace and all sorts of other measures were being taken to make sure that everything was ready. Entire new defensive structures, bunkers as well as shelters and emergency hospitals had to be redesigned from the ground up, as Ibiki and a squad of jonin had taken Kabuto and his teammates captive, proven their treason, and under interrogation those traitors revealed that the present defensive arrangements of Konoha were entirely known to their enemies and compromised in full.

Retreating your civilians and children into a shelter your enemy had already put traps in ahead of time was only asking for more casualties. While trying to do trauma medicine in a clinic lined with explosive tags just got messy.

But clearing out those traps and tags, then making sure you'd got them all, and guarding those facilities so no one got in to replace those, was far more work than simply creating a new set of hidden bunkers and so on.

After all, they were ninja, so their enemies were ninja too. You'd never be entirely sure that you'd gotten ALL of the tricks and traps removed! Odds were you likely hadn't. Every village had their own experts in obscure and oddball stuff. No one could know enough to check for them all.

It was, in the midst of this frenzy of activity, that Sarutobi had noticed how calm Naruto was. The boy had just gotten married, to a fairly large crowd of young girls by most standards. His home was about to be attacked, and yet...

It had been in that moment that Sarutobi felt his first serious doubt that Naruto might NOT having been making up that time travel story all along as an obscure form of prank or attempt to gain recognition.

What he'd seen back in that office had nearly convinced Sarutobi.

There, on Naruto's face, was not the expression of a warrior whose home was about to be assaulted or destroyed, nor was it the face of an ignorant child who was innocent of the dangers posed. It hadn't even been the face of a hidden traitor who had helped to bring the whole thing about.

It had been the face of an old campaigner, who'd been through it all before and who would survive to do it all again; a man who did not have to frantically get ready, as he was always ready, all of the time.

Naruto hadn't even been aware of how much he'd changed when he hadn't felt the need to keep his masks on, but to the Hokage it had been far greater than the contrast between an anxious new student preparing to go off for his first day of classes, carefully frantic to get all of the books and things gathered together, making sure they were presentable, then unable to sleep the night before for all of the excitement, and one who has been attending the same schedule for many years.

Sarutobi had realized then that it had become a routine for the boy to have his home village be invaded. There was no mystery for him to it, no anxiety or uncertainty, nothing that it could present to him was entirely new.

He was completely familiar with every aspect of it.

It had been in that moment that Sarutobi realized that Arashi's child had seen more of carnage, chaos, war and death than he himself had, and the boy had not lived through any of the last few ninja wars, as he'd done.

In that second he could fully believe the boy's outrageous story.

Of course the second had passed, as seconds always do, leaving the Hokage to second guess his moment of discovery. But it had given him pause enough to stop what he'd been doing, fold his hands upon the desk before him, and ask, "So, Naruto. What are your plans for the future?"

The Hokage had meant the invasion, but it strengthened his suspicion when the child told him, "Use the memories to train everyone up to meet this the next time, of course."

Naruto said it with such a casual, uncaring shrug that Sarutobi got chilled. "I meant for our immediate future, the invasion?" the elderly man corrected.

Once more Naruto had shrugged. "Observe the enemy's placements, like usual. They always change them when we alter our own deployment. Then, see if they can score any casualties on our shelters in spite of the new setup - if they can that probably means that someone aside from Kabuto's team are funneling him information. So that will be something to look for next time, trying to identify who those other sources are."

Once again, it had been about what he'd do when this all started over again. The Hokage had begun to experience real doubts in that moment. So, with a smile, he'd tested the theory. "And how are you planning to implant those memories?" he'd asked. "I understand the Yamanaka clan was less than helpful or forthcoming on those clan secrets of theirs. But even if you knew them all, there is the rather small matter of how to pass those back to their original owners. The illusion techniques are rather demanding."

In that moment Sarutobi pegged the mannerisms Naruto had been using. The blond was unguarded just then, having told his secret and not been believed, so he'd not been bothering to disguise his real feelings, as he so often did.

To Sarutobi's startled eyes back then Naruto had been like a baker talking about making bread.

There'd been no fear he couldn't do it, no uncertainty or nervousness. This had been just something he did, had done for a very long time, and Naruto'd been unconcerned with how this particular recipe turned out, as he had many others to rely on.

It had been a realization that made Sarutobi feel old. Seeing children turn out as hardened soldiers was something he'd worked hard to avoid by bringing peace to Konoha for those past many years.

Then the boy had actually yawned before making his reply.

YAWNED!

The rest of the village had been in an uproar about the coming invasion and how to prepare for it, while Arashi's child had YAWNED! Not even the Hokage could be that blase about the upcoming fights, to be so relaxed in the face of them!

Scratching himself, the boy had replied to the Hokage's question, "Well, they did try to keep them secret, but I figured out enough from what Ino showed me to make the copies. That's the big part. With those, I can afford to take a couple of resets on learning how to implant them. What I think I'll do is get you excited over the prospect of having my memories of that fight against Orochimaru in the Forest of Death part of the exam, so you'll send me off to Kurenai to learn how to do that whole memory share thing. I'll only have half a day, at most, each time to learn the techniques, but I can cut it down to a two day repeat set to maximize learning time over a minimal wait period, then use the in between time to practice whatever exercises she gives me."

'That could actually work.' Sarutobi had briefly considered it from the boy's perspective for once. 'Yes, his plan is totally independent of me right now.'

That thought had made him visibly feel even older. Useless was one thing no one ever desired to be.

Instead of dealing with that horrible thought, the Hokage had pulled down a blank piece of paper and begun to write upon it. Having presented the newly sealed note to Naruto, he'd said, "Here, this will authorize you to claim enough of Kurenai's time to give you a basic familiarity with the illusion you seek." The Hokage had taken a deep breath, then forced a smile. "Good... good luck, Naruto."

The blond had accepted the note with a surprised glance, but got businesslike in how quickly he vanished to go make use of it.

Exactly as an experienced, professional shinobi should be.

The utter professionalism of those moments had destroyed the Hokage's doubts further.

But Naruto, by then, was gone.

I I I

Naruto had become the Hokage's hat so that, no matter what happened, he could be with the old man up until his very last moments, as he figured that the more information he returned with, the more likely he was to convince his gramps of this story the next time, even if he failed with the mind thingy.

Obviously, that hadn't worked.

Stupid grumbling stomach. He hadn't even gotten to see the look on the Hokage's face as his headware had growled like that!

Hmm, he'd have to plan that as a prank sometime.

Still, Naruto was not incautious on other matters, having captured memories from all of his wives before that last day had even started. He'd hoped to have updated them at the last moments, but understood the fighting could be so chaotic that was far from guaranteed to happen.

Still, his clones had known enough to have made 'last copies' right at the end of the last of their matches, after everyone but Sasuke had fought, as the last time they'd been through a wedding repeat, that had been the last safe and sane moment where copying those memories could be done.

Really, Ino hadn't known enough, and the rest of her family wouldn't teach him enough, to make that memory copy process work as it ought to. Naruto had been forced to fall back upon his old academy habits of knowing only just enough to puzzle out the rest. So his memory copy jutsu was unmastered, barely even tested.

However, the time looping boy was now mature enough to accept that not all of his plans had to succeed on the first attempt. But even though one had to accept failures when they happened, it also helped to provide for success, so he'd spent most of that last reset working to build the relationships he had with his girls, providing them with the best weddings and conversations he knew how, just in case that all had worked.

Of course, that being a wedding reset, there had still come a confrontation with Hinata's father, and that hadn't grown any less inelegant. Sarutobi had been even less amused about the lost ANBU, with the invasion to consider, and the whole village hating him, then confused about his bloodline and father and all, was a heavy burden for those girls to consider.

Still, although it hadn't been perfect, it had been as good as Naruto knew how to do for his girls, which wasn't at all bad.

On the other hand, for other people it was... worse.

Although Naruto hadn't put much thought into it, Gaara could get away with killing Konoha ninja because he wasn't one himself. He was from Sand, which gave him some leeway, as it placed him outside of the Konoha justice system without provoking a serious diplomatic incident much like the war they'd been preparing for, or the one with Cloud they'd barely avoided.

And, as an admitted psychopath, he had still more leeway. You provoke one of those when you know what you are doing and most see it as you deserving what you get.

Still, that would have done nothing more than delay those repercussions, but for the way that whole thing got resolved.

If Naruto or another ninja of Konoha had tried anything close to the same level of force to stop Hiashi's attempt to curse Hinata, they could have been dealt with at once, immediately bringing down a full force reprisal. To have even resisted peacefully could have triggered an immediate assault by Hiashi and his men, who could have excused themselves later.

Which had been something of the Hyuga's plan all along, Hiashi had always run around those rules he found inconvenient by operating on the phrase, "It is easier to get forgiveness than permission."

A simple excuse of, "The demon brat used force on my men, so we replied," could have gotten him forgiven of murder, even though he'd been the one to use force in the first place. He would ride it through by catering to those who had not been there, or subverting those who had been to his side, using the fact that they WANTED to believe the worst of Naruto to get himself out of any blame for having openly provoked a confrontation, then destroyed him.

Whereas, getting permission to execute Naruto beforehand was something that Sarutobi could and had blocked before.

So, if any Konoha ninja had replied when Hiashi sent his men out in attacks of one sort or another, that could only have ended with the victims of Hiashi's assault blamed for provoking those attacks in the first place.

Consider him what you will, never deny that the Hyuga clan head was a wily political opponent. Getting others to bear the blame for his own deeds was paltry to him.

However, when Gaara had been the first to use lethal force that became an international incident. That kicked it up to the next level, where it could not be ignored by those in Konoha who turned a blind eye toward injustice so long as Naruto was the only (or primary) victim.

They could no longer afford to act with impunity in that case, as they had to consider how it would look to other villages. And the plain simple fact of the matter was that Hiashi's house invasion looked bad any way that you turned it. There was no good way to break the fact that they'd been going to the home of a family not married one full day to put a seal used ONLY for torture and death on one of the brides - who was also the clan heiress of the person who would've been putting that cursed seal on her!

The other villages all had their own ninja. They knew better than to believe whatever pretty face Konoha tried to staple over such an incident. Most would even find out that Hiashi and his party had been belligerent and hostile, openly provoking a fight while performing their gruesome task.

There was no way for them to disguise that, and to any village OTHER than Konoha, Naruto had plain and uncontested authority over his wife as part of his new clan and that the old one should've gone piss up a rope.

No one, outside of Konoha, could or would fault Gaara for having resisted that with whatever force he felt was necessary. To most, those who died were about to break law by taking Hinata away when Naruto had authority over her as part of his new clan.

And it would've cost Konoha their 'nice guy' image rather completely to have such a story get out. Konoha enjoyed a substantial portion of their business due to the 'nice guy' image they tried to present. Hidden Mist, while they had extremely effective ninja, had a substantial portion of the available customer base who simply wouldn't touch them due to their fearsome reputation as ninja who had to kill their own comrades to graduate.

Who could trust a ninja who had already killed his own friends?

Then, of course, it was proved (but only AFTER Hiashi had pushed to get his way and provoked a defensive response that left several dead) that even by the bloodline favoring laws of Konoha, the Hyuga clan was in the wrong, as Naruto had an equivalent bloodline, and thus equal if not superior rights.

Hiashi had overstepped his bounds. Many times before he'd gotten away with it to other's cost. This time that equation had been reversed.

Sarutobi could no more prevent all the deaths of Konoha ninja than he could stop the leaves from falling. Those lives had not been lost to his order, nor to any fault of Naruto's. If he had not resisted, or more accurately, called in Gaara to resist and protect them, Hinata at least would've been put under a caged bird seal, if not killed.

What Sarutobi had known, and considered, that Naruto had not experience enough to predict for himself was that it would've been too much for Hiashi to resist having used the seal upon his daughter almost the moment it was placed, torturing her right there before her husband in hopes of provoking him to combat.

There had been a reason so many ANBU loyal to Hyuga had gone that day, and why the Hokage had been looking so grim.

It had been Sarutobi's belief that he knew the man enough to guess that the Hyuga clan head had a long speech prepared to deliver as he slowly, torturously killed his own child, all about how it was better that she should die than her noble bloodline should be sullied by the taint carried by the boy she'd married. Those might not have been the exact words, but Sarutobi had believed it would have been along those lines - deliberately insulting on top of the injury in the hopes of provoking combat, which Hiashi could then use as an excuse to have killed Naruto, and perhaps every member of that small family as well, just to wipe the entire slate clean.

It was not as if such things had not happened before.

No, Sarutobi had regretted the loss of those ANBU, but before they'd even gone to the compound it was clear that some death was going to be delivered that day, and he could not blame Naruto for it.

No, he'd been there mostly to intervene when and if he could, and that had proved unnecessary.

However, as he later faced the invasion, the Hokage dearly wished that he could have prevented it all, as those experienced ninja would be so useful for it.

But, if he could've stopped it all, he never would've permitted that procession to Naruto's clan compound in the first place.

None of this affected Naruto's plans as he gleefully sprang forth on the morning of the reset to go and try out his new jutsu to see if he really could implant those new memories and see if his friends could recall just what had gone on before the reset.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Not my best, I know it. Fairly few laughs and all, not even all that great on the expository side of things, just some junk that had to be gone through before we could go further.

As for the delay, well, on Thursday I had a big road trip, so I knew beforehand that I'd be skipping out on that one. Friday was bounce back because after the road trip we came home to bad news - a girl ripped my shy brother a new one for being afraid she might be unkind, which is really ironic, and I usually love irony, but this was just sad, as he had to go through all of the stress of a bad break up without having the privilege of going on an actual date.

So anyway, through no fault of anyones (except that girl, of course) what was going to have been a one day delay turned into more like three. So, sorry about that.

This story, like ramen, is best served hot, and the three day delay was not good for it in my opinion.


	33. Chapter 33

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Three

by Lionheart

I I I

"Hinata-chan? Darling? Wake up."

Hinata knew she was dreaming, as that was her Naruto-kun's voice and she had heard him call her darling. How could that be real? She knew that despite how much she loved him, the boy whose many qualities she admired barely even knew she existed. He thought she was weird.

"No, I do not think you're weird, Hinata darling. I think you are very cute and your kisses are to die for."

See! She hadn't kissed anyone, ever! She was shy to begin with and no one else seemed half as interesting to her as Naruto.

"Aw, you're making me blush, Hinata-chan. For what it's worth, I love you too."

And with that, the startled girl sat up in her bed with a gasp, only to see her crush standing there beside her. Before she could say a word, though, he had snuck in and touched her lips with his, before backing off to say, "There, now I've had your first kiss, and I've got to say that it made me want another, in fact, a whole LOT more of your kisses. But for now I am going to have to settle for offering you this."

He held out his hand towards her, and sitting there in his palm was a point of lavender light, glittering like a jewel. Even without her bloodline active she was able to recognize it as visible chakra, which meant it had to be really intense and focused.

She honestly hadn't thought he'd gotten that far in his studies, as whatever it was, it was truly advanced!

Hinata met Naruto's eyes. "I... I've died and gone to Heaven, haven't I?" she asked in a trembling voice, then smiled at him. "I always knew you would be here, but..." then her eyes widened, and she leapt out of bed and grabbed him. "But Naruto-kun! You CAN'T have died yet! You haven't reached your dream and made Hokage!"

He quieted her with a kiss, which was as effective as it was soothing. She'd raised her voice a bit during the last exclamation, and it would not do for angry family members to overhear shouting and look to see what was going on.

No, that wouldn't do at all.

"Hinata-chan, being with you is more important to me than being Hokage, or anything else that I can think of."

She melted.

"Now," he tenderly offered her the point of light again. "This belongs to you, and I want you to have it. Someone who loves us both wants you to have it, too." He was referring to her future self, the one with one month and eight days more experience than she had at present. Of course, the current girl had no way of knowing that, and knew of no one who loved her Naruto-kun and her.

Come to think of it, she knew of no one besides her who loved Naruto-kun, and for that matter she couldn't name one soul who loved her.

Well, aside from him. He'd just said it, and that made this Heaven, and so what he was offering to her could not be bad, as they didn't do bad things to each other in Heaven. Heaven was a place where everyone was nice and kind (Hell was a place where all the cruel and nasty people had only each other to be mean to). Perhaps her mother had wanted her to have this? She was in Heaven, too, so if Naruto-kun was here as well they'd probably met, and how could she not like him?

Doubts resolved at last, the young girl reached for the chakra jewel he offered her...

And Remembered!

There was a whole month in there of having been married to her Naruto-kun! Oh, and there was some other stuff as well, but... MARRIED! To her Naruto-kun! That kind of dwarfed everything else.

For Naruto, neither part of this whole memory transfer thing had been easy. But then again very little in his short life had been easy. In the first place he'd not had the Yamanaka's ability to parse through memories so easily, and there were stored all over the place, so he'd kind of just... sucked, Ino and the rest into HIS mind, showed them around the place (including the cage with the Kyubi sleeping peacefully, wounds almost healed by now), and then taken them upstairs to give them a room.

Naruto had no official verbiage or technical jargon for what he'd done. He couldn't adequately explain it, not even if he knew language describing how. It had been a bit like moving his hand, it all functioned on so deep a level that it didn't even register on a conscious one - he merely DID it!

However, in the mansion of his mindscape, each of those girls who'd married him had their own rooms. He'd helped them move in stuff and get settled. They had closets with favorite outfits, hairbrushes and the works, with little wedding mementos, pictures and photos in picture frames, and so on.

There was even a little Hinata in there, asleep on the bed that he'd made for her, only now that Hinata had just woken up and was exclaiming all over things.

Out in the outside world, Hinata had glommed onto her husband with all of the force available in her young body and was currently mashing her lips to his before going searching for a furry tail that she could cuddle.

It went much the same way with each those other girls, as his clones woke them up in other parts of town, with the mindscape version of herself waking up as the link got reestablished, and all of them reaching in to spend a few moments recalling all of the memories they'd stored in there.

It had worked. Only, this being their first reset, it took each of them a while to become used to the idea of this not being the end of the chunin exam, but instead only just the beginning.

Still, Naruto was HAPPY to take them each by the hand and show them things that could convince them. He had whole catalogs of facts to point out by then, and they had all of the time in the world together to get used to it.

All that while he couldn't stop grinning. He had his FRIENDS again!

Perhaps... yes, just perhaps, he had the first real friends ever.

The boy simply could not stop grinning.

I I I

Of course, no sooner had it been proved to everyone that the resets were real and the memories had happened, time just got turned back, then the immediate priority became training.

Lots and LOTS of training!

Because, you see, they all had an opportunity here. Naruto had never even come close to being able to pass on all he'd learned before. There just wasn't time - Only now they had all of the time in the world.

The girls could only learn things Naruto knew. Well, perhaps that could be better stated by saying he could only teach what he knew, but they also had those same limits that restricted him, namely nothing physical could change.

By using the Sharingan, albeit briefly (and those pangs of yearning for it had still not left him entirely alone, he'd wake up sometimes still wanting to go out and challenge the whole town just to learn all of the jutsu and moves used in Konoha), Naruto had implanted muscle memories of what he'd learned up until that point. Now he was left in the condition of someone who was out of shape for what he'd been doing.

His mind knew what it was doing, and so did his body, but while his body knew it didn't necessarily have the refined capabilities to do it, just like an athlete that has stopped practicing for a while. He KNEW, but he was rusty, having 'lost his edge' as the fitness freaks would call it. Never mind that he was far better now than he'd ever been, that was how they'd see it, because that was the only condition in their experience that could properly explain it. Both he and his body had the movements programmed in, but all of those tiny little adjustments practice made to the muscles were lacking.

So, while he had very good skills indeed, they weren't all they could be.

Naruto's muscle memory powered martial arts were indeed about twice as good as they'd been before. He'd gone from top genin to low chunin. But he'd probably be a substantial step closer to mid-chunin if he could have that last little bit, the added flexibility, power and toughness that came from those callouses and things he'd couldn't form while caught in a repeat.

Not that he expected to get 'em. It just helped to be aware of the issues that were holding one back, as those same things would be holding back the girls.

Actually, he had a good perspective on that from his training under Gai and Lee. Those martial arts specialists had ceaselessly encouraged him in their own particular way, and Gai had, more than once, complimented him on his ability to pick up their style.

That was the thing, in the Strong Fist style practiced by those two, he'd already had the reflexes, picked up by the Sharingan from watching Lee, first fighting Sasuke, and then in the prelims against himself. But having that had interested Gai less than Naruto's work-developed ability to learn them mentally.

Apparently, having to learn the Academy martial art style by having carefully memorized each and every step, along with the exact placement of each limb and joint as he did so, then having to do that all over AGAIN when the Kyubi gave him that unwanted growth spurt, had trained Naruto's mind in the ability to pick up and study martial arts.

In layman's terms, he'd learned how to learn them.

Having had to focus in on every exacting detail, not just once but TWICE, had granted Naruto an understanding of how to learn and study martial arts, one that even Gai found impressive. Not that those two were about to call it a Gift, in fact they would've been severely hurt had he not confessed to having done it through a great deal of hard work (at which point they'd embraced him, shouting his name, with a sunset over the sea in the background - one of the most touching and acceptance-laden moments of his young life, and dearly cherished for that).

But no, he'd picked up the mental aspects of their Strong Fist style faster than just about anyone, and since he could only claim hard work as his advantage, that had only spurred Lee on harder and even faster.

Now, he had the same ability to pursue that with Hinata, learning her Gentle Fist style, as one thing Naruto had learned early on was that it taught you things you hadn't known you'd known to teach something to someone else. So Hinata could benefit powerfully from teaching him her family's style.

For that matter, they'd ALL practice it! Because from what little practice Naruto had given that art already, he'd learned that it made for some great chakra control exercises, if nothing else.

Besides, bloodline theft was on the horizon someplace, so it wasn't entirely out of the question that at some point in the future they could be able to use that style as well as any of the Hyugas. Not that they'd be great, because those same disadvantages still holding him back would still be there, but...

For the situation they were in, the Hyuga's Gentle Fist style was better for them than Gai's Strong Fist. That was because the Strong Fist depended on massive physical development, huge and intensive training programs leading to a fitness level that verged on the insane.

And they simply couldn't do that, as it wouldn't improve them a bit.

Naruto had learned how. He'd been through those intensive training regimes alongside both Gai and Lee. He knew how to push his body beyond its normal limits, felt the burn, got a real workout, and so he'd gotten the knowledge and ability to exercise on that level. He just didn't want to do so uselessly, and so had been holding back on it until he felt it could do him some good.

But the Gentle Fist, with its soft deflection instead of hard blocks, was better suited to them now, when they couldn't become physical powerhouses. It wasn't that the art was any less demanding or that they weren't limited still by their inability to benefit speed or endurance through exercise, but that the style's focus on soft forms made it capable of using what they had far more efficiently.

Hinata, sadly, would likely never beat Neji in a straight up fight using the Hyuga style, as the older boy had developed insane speed into his body that now she couldn't match.

Skill-wise, however, she could come a great deal closer, if not surpass him.

Another thing they'd all want to practice was throwing weapons. Naruto had gone from being able to hit forty percent of the time, instead of Tenten's one-hundred percent, all the way up to eighty (half that, still, with the exotic garbage not meant to be thrown).

Still, eighty percent of the time was NOT bad! And it could do Hinata a world of good to throw junk at Neji or that chakra stealing guy instead of having to face them in close combat!

Similarly, Tenten could gain a great deal of edge on future opponents if she had some close combat capacity instead of being all ranged. Actually, though, her most frequent opponent was still going to be Temari. They'd have to do something about that.

Temari could be strongly benefited by having those two's specialties added to her own, just as they could be substantially aided by having access to her wind techniques.

Ino didn't feel like she'd be contributing much, until Naruto teasingly pointed out that it was her, and her family techniques, that was making all of this training possible.

Hana had no doubts of her own usefulness, and put up with no nonsense from any of the younger females. She was clearly the Alpha female of this pack, being the oldest and highest ranking ninja among them. Besides, her clan techniques could be among the most useful of all to them, as between that Beast Mimicry and some others, they could be using chakra to boost up their otherwise permanently stalled physical prowess.

Ayame, who Hinata had insisted they bring along, had been content to quietly make meals for everyone, until Hana made it clear that she wouldn't allow it.

The ramen stand owner's daughter had never been a ninja, but in Hana's eyes that ended the moment she became a member of a ninja pack who were in a position to potentially save their village when no one else could.

As alpha female, management of the younger bitches fell under her authority and Hana had already decided to make the waitress into a ninja because she felt they needed every bit of help they could get on this assignment, and she was available. So, before any of the other members of the pack had anything to say about it, Ayame's tutoring in the ninja arts was already happening.

There was enough of Naruto about to help with all that had to be done, of course, and one of the first things he'd wanted to teach them all was his version of the Shadow Clone technique.

Hey, it was enormously useful as a training tool!

It didn't much matter if each of ten clones had only one-tenth the chakra if they were learning things like Naruto's civilian trades. And for most control exercises, a limited capacity was only a small detriment. Sparring and martial arts practice, so long as they were strictly martial arts moves, would not be hindered in the least.

So, for most of what he had to teach them, the ability to make clones was a big step up on everything they wanted to do!

Luckily, he'd had a ton of practice training Tenten in this, so it didn't even take a whole reset for every member of that small family, including Ayame, to have that technique down to where they could use it.

He'd also had enough practice teaching her how to make explosive tags that that went quickly too, spreading over everyone in the same short amount of time.

Getting everyone to do the basic chakra control exercises taught to him by the scroll of Ebisu's, the one listing out how to develop elemental affinities, was another useful thing to start, and, although that didn't have as quick results, he didn't expect them to be fast on that.

Having memories about losing their chunin exam final fights was proving to be very motivational to the girls, not because they hated their opponents or wanted revenge particularly, but, as Naruto warned them, if you get into a fight you can't win during those resets, then you tend to get beat up an awful lot. Since no one likes to get beaten, least of all tender young girls, they practiced and they practiced hard to bring their skills up.

All of this time, while Naruto had clones training each of his girls, he also had more out there continuing to practice his own exercises and training, in both chakra control and everything else. And when the real him got over being giddy that he had real friends again, ones he could hang out with and who'd understand him, whose every reaction he couldn't predict anymore, well, then it was time for him to celebrate by working on whole new stuff!

He'd gotten a breakthrough while practicing on seals to use to adapt Hana's armor to her despite her clan techniques tending to bulge and swell certain parts of the body, muscles and such, but also teeth and forming fingernails into claws and so on.

It was a great battle technique, but Naruto hadn't been able to use as much of it as he would have liked because of those shifts constricting the fit of his armor, so in the really serious fights it had always been a choice which to use, the Inuzuka clan techniques or his laboriously produced protection. But in trying to resolve that for Hana, he made a discovery that ought to help them all out enormously.

Naruto found bits of what he'd wanted described in completely unrelated seals, found out how to isolate and combine those bits he'd wanted through the process of experimenting, losing several hundreds clones to do it, and at the end had created a new seal array, a very minor one in most ways, not very large or complicated at all. However, it didn't have to be complex to be useful.

No, Naruto's new seal could be emplaced on a suit of armor (or clothes, as he later discovered) and once linked to a user it could shift that suit in synch with changes to their body, so that it would always have the exact same fit regardless of issues like growth from natural development or temporary chakra based body enhancing techniques.

It basically just linked the two so the body and the armor changed in synch.

It was so small a seal array that he could even hide it in the hems of clothes so that no one, not even the wearer, had to know it was there. So those wardrobes he'd learned how to create for his beloved females, and that were the envy of half of Konoha, could now be created again with impunity if he were to desire to do so.

It didn't solve the problem of him becoming a famous tailor, but it did solve the issue of them growing out of those carefully fitted ninja outfits over the month or so before the exam finals.

And now he and Hana could use those Inuzuka clan techniques wearing armor. Which meant, if he really wanted to, he could now design suits that were much thicker, as the increased strength granted out of Beast Mimicry would allow them to bear that properly.

It couldn't be made to stop Orochimaru's sword or Manda's teeth (frankly, what could?), but against anything in the light to mid range of power, which was most of what everyone threw in combat except for certain rare heavy hitters like they mostly happened to be up against, it should do fine.

So the armor began to appear again, with more confidence this time.

Actually, Naruto had a great deal of fun there, as now that those girls could be consulted they had more ideas and imagination to throw things about and bounce ideas back and forth. And Temari, being the daughter of the Kage of Sand, a country which dealt mostly in metals and metal goods, had learned enough by overhearing casual conversations and such to be able to suggest other metals and possibly alloys for Naruto to experiment with.

That proved to be an eye-opener, as previously he'd done most of his work in steel, although he'd also done some copper cookware for the sake of it.

However, though they were more expensive and harder to find people who could teach him to work in them, there were some other materials. Titanium in particular was both lighter and stronger than steel, having the highest strength to weight ratio of any metal, although it wasn't something an ordinary blacksmith could just casually set a hammer to. For one, it didn't bear metal fatigue as well as steel did, so hammering wasn't the best way to work it. But that was mostly a moot point, as it was too dang tough to work by hand!

Well, it COULD be done, it just was far from easy. And the heat at which the stuff had to be smelted and tempered was just slightly short of unreal.

Not being easy had never stopped Naruto in the best of times, and he'd been practicing Fire affinity for months by letting a blazing fire burn near him without getting him so much as warm. So, between fire techniques to heat the flames, chakra control exercises to protect him, and Beast Mimicry to hammer and shape the stuff, he could gradually learn to work it over time.

However, his real breakthrough there occurred when he started to design his own techniques, using what he already knew as a base, to help him out in the forge, using first fire to heat the metal, then earth to form solid crushing dies to squash that metal in between and form the proper shapes that way.

It was rough and crude, and titanium had a 'memory' so that it tended to spring back into what it had been before - which was great once you had it in the form of armor, as it could thus more easily resist blows, but that ability to resist blows was far from ideal when you were trying to hammer it into the form of that armor to begin with.

No, in most ways the stuff could just be a nightmare to work with, so he began to refine that through frequent experimentation, a process that had as a natural side effect the fact that he began playing with alloy mixtures, different grades, and processes for mixing the steel he already knew how to work with. Even in the narrow range that made up steel, mixtures of carbon and iron could form a number of different structures, all of which had very different properties, most of which the smiths of the elemental countries had never explored properly.

One problem he got trying to forge the new stuff was that titanium burned at temperatures less than required to melt it, when exposed to air. Cooling the new material properly also turned out to be a real bear, and the stuff just didn't want to work into intricate shapes with the precision necessary for the tasks he had to hand, using the methods he had available.

But he persevered, learning new methods and, when he had to, inventing some, creating entirely new ninja techniques useful for nothing else but to help him craft stuff out of titanium.

Then, to get a sufficient supply of that hard to obtain metal, enough to outfit his whole small family, he adapted some of his earth chakra control exercises to separate out minuscule particles of titanium from out of the ground. Once he had that down, he sent his clones out far and wide searching the boundaries of the territory he could reach, surveying for that useful mineral, as well as certain others Temari had told him about.

And, of course, this was really nothing more than a side venture to him, as his real time and attention was focused on the fun he was having now that he had people to share his life!

But the best of experiences can make for boring retelling.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Yes, I didn't even get to what I had planned for this section so far. It just flows better and I don't have to force it nearly as much, if at all, if I try to keep my momentum up.

Still not what I'd call a good section, but it's better than it was, a definite improvement, I am thinking. It just feels better to write it this way. Fast is definitely better for this story.

And, of course, 'Team Naruto' are preparing to take Konoha by storm.


	34. Chapter 34

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Four

by Lionheart

----

Naruto had never actually collected the Hokage's memories, as he'd been waiting for the right moment, so he could get them all, and his silly rumbling tummy had stopped all that from happening.

Still, he DID have that 'compress three days into one second' illusion that he'd developed for that purpose.

The only flaw with that technique was that he didn't have absolute control over the territory the illusion created. It basically drew one person into the mind of the other, and they both had power to affect that mindscape if they wanted to, so it wasn't something you'd want to use on an enemy. But it WAS useful for the one thing he'd developed it for - training!

He'd hoped to use it on the old guy a second or so before his death, so they could set up a 'memory cache' together at their leisure. Right now he was developing it to use along with a training program for Lee, getting the green clad genin a suite of chakra techniques once he'd finished that experimental medical process to get the disabled boy's coils functioning properly.

And he was working big time on how to do that for his old friend.

Ninja medicine was about what you'd expect, as it met a ninja's typical needs, and mainly those came in the form of stab wounds, burns, shocks and the like. In short, it was trauma medicine at its finest.

But Naruto had identified two areas that it lacked in already. One of those was in disease control, they frankly weren't very good at it when compared to their trauma specialty, but the other was in degenerative conditions. Into this last field also fell such things as incomplete generation.

Lee's chakra coils had never finished their development. That was it. That was all, just a certain vital part of his body had never completely grown into what it ought to be. That sort of thing happened with some frequency, and they were generally known as birth defects. Sometimes the person having them died, like when the heart had incompletely formed, or sometimes the person was completely normal in all ways but had something crippling like no legs. Lee's chakra coils fell in that latter department. However, this was something that the injury focused ninja medical science had not addressed.

The doctor at the clinic giving lessons who'd used Lee as an example had been thinking in terms of surgery to repair, replace or reconstruct those coils, a daunting prospect indeed. Naruto, who'd been doing explorations into bloodline theft, had just absorbed all of the hospital's recorded knowledge on that subject, and had a different idea.

Bloodline theft could be accomplished a number of different ways. You could either get a hold of someone who had that bloodline you wanted and breed up your own supply of them. That was actually how Konoha got most of theirs, but it was slow and depended on their willing support of your project. The next level up was to use the affected part, like an eye or whatever, and just implant that directly using surgery. But those people couldn't breed those advantages into future generations of ninja.

Neither of those required any particular skill.

However, the third method was where the real payoff occurred. That was where you got the most results, the fastest. And, unlike a transplant, you had a number of breedable people more or less right away.

There were a number of techniques for growing cells quickly. That came as a standard part of most of the advanced healing skills. The third method of bloodline theft came about only when a highly skilled medic used it, but they would take a sample of the bloodline carrying genes, and 'grow' those across and into the genetic structure of an otherwise normal adult body.

Unlike both other methods, that gave you several adult bloodline carriers right away.

That was obviously the method Naruto was hoping for, even though the best genetic structures used for this generally had to be extracted from tender internal parts, it was what gave the best results, so what he was aiming for. But it was, admittedly, a very advanced art, and so one that very few medics could perform successfully.

He was just aiming to be one of those, naturally.

Unfortunately, they couldn't do it from mere genes alone, so what had to happen most often was a tissue graft from the donor would be implanted and used as a starting point to seed those genes across the rest of a body.

But that wouldn't hurt him... for very long anyway.

Eyes made for an extremely bad tissue sample to work from, or else Kakashi could have been made into a full blooded Uchiha with two Sharingan eyes and full control over them, just as naturally adept as Sasuke and Itachi.

The thing that tied this back to Lee, in Naruto's insightful mind, was that if they could promote cells and even genes to grow in unnatural ways, it ought to be much, much easier to convince a body to finish growing out in normal, natural ones that had, for whatever reason, paused at incomplete stages.

So Naruto was working on that, and a part of how he was working on that was trying to sprout plant bulbs from Ino's shop. They weren't animal, but they were alive, so he felt that medical techniques ought to have some use on them.

And experimenting on animals just seemed too icky.

Meanwhile Ino had a wonderful opportunity to bug her family for more of the clan techniques. Since she wasn't OBVIOUSLY married to the village pariah (he and she both knew, along with some other girls, but no one else in town recalled that ceremony, so it was a bit like being secretly engaged) and had a good excuse in that she was in the midst of the chunin exam, she had a decent argument for swaying them.

"No luck," Ino sighed, rejoining the group despondent. "Dad says that he won't teach me anything more until I've got more mastery of what they already taught me."

The girls, looking at Naruto and expecting him to be despondent, got a shock to see him looking gleeful. Matching their gazes, he cackled, rubbing his hands together in a fake-villain way. "Excellent."

The girls were dumbfounded, so he explained, giving them all a glad shrug. "It's no big deal, really. Your dad did the next best thing to saying, 'Yah, sure. I'll train you'."

"But he just said he won't!" Ino protested, confused over how he could not be getting this.

But Naruto was already shaking his head, instructing them with a gleam in his eyes. "No, he said he won't train you YET! That's a very important qualifier. So, we practice what you already know on each other, and next reset or so you go up to him and, this is the fun part, DON'T ask him for more of your family techniques! Instead you'll ask him for help mastering what you've already got. Then, at some point probably not too far away, he'll realize, 'Wow! My little princess is better at this than I thought! I guess it's time to train her up to the next level'."

Ino sat stunned as Naruto copied her father's voice and tones precisely. Those words were even the kind of phrases her daddy would use.

Naruto had leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head, shrugging, he told them, "Don't forget, we're in a time loop. There's all the opportunities we could want to get something right. If it doesn't work the first time, try, try again. And your dad gave it to you on a silver platter: All you've got to do now is approach him after we've practiced you up some. Then he'll see that your skills have improved he'll think you're ready for the next step, and if he doesn't see that himself you can ask again, or if not him then your mom, or whoever you could convince. It's simple, really."

They all blinked at that thought, not used to thinking in terms of resets or doing those same actions over again with only slight variation, hoping to get better results.

Oh well, they'd learn.

Naruto had several fairly short resets in mind, as currently he was hoping to examine the cursed seal Orochimaru kept putting on Sasuke, and the best time to do that was when it was still stabilizing itself. After all, having seen the snake guy implant the thing using that long neck jutsu of his, while under his temporary Sharingan, Naruto had a fair idea of how the whole cursed seal thing worked.

Well, no. That must be restated. The Sharingan taught NOTHING of the hows and whys of a jutsu, not even the whens or wheres, only the what. It gave you the ability to do something without having to understand how you did it, just like punching the buttons on a remote control didn't grant you power to understand the device that it operated.

It didn't teach you under what circumstances it would be best to use (the wheres), or the best times to use it (the whens), although when it was active it could help you time things by showing you what an opponent was up to and thus what openings he'd be leaving, that still wasn't you, that was the Sharingan, nor did it suggest 'you know, now would be a great time to use X.'

That wasn't it's job. The Sharingan copied things. It gave the ability to use them. It was experience that taught the rest, and most who had the special eyes didn't bother learning anything more that what their eyes taught them. Most did not even maintain a catalog of their arsenal, not even bothering to recall their stolen techniques unless reminded, usually by someone else using them on them.

It seemed that arrogance and laziness were an essential part of the design.

However, Naruto had learned the 'what' of several of Orochimaru's special techniques by using that, and included among those were the long neck thing and how to place a cursed seal on someone.

A cursed seal that would make them loyal to Orochimaru, so that wasn't something he was ever intending to do, but still, by calming the 'must learn more jutsu!' urge accompanying the memory of that week, Naruto was able to sit down and think through the process of how he would go about placing a cursed seal without actually doing it.

Basically, he let his reflexes ride with the thought on a practice dummy while his conscious mind stood back and watched. Then he did it again and then again, until he had some of the hows figured out.

It didn't grant him the whys or anything like that, but by observing himself as he went through the technique he managed to pick up more than the simple shortcut carved into his mind by the Sharingan, an understanding on a level of, "Here is fist. Punch!"

Using techniques taught by the Sharingan was akin to punching a button on a remote control, as far as difficulty went. "Point and click" was about the comprehension of the inner workings of those techniques it granted, just like most couch potatoes had no understanding of the depth of complexity in the remote control in their hands, or the target it affected.

And, if you could actually recall what each of those buttons did, he supposed that could be an advantage, as it could make nearly anyone into a ninja. But with all of the work being done by the Sharingan, it could also make nearly anyone into a lazy, selfish bastard.

Or, at least, so he supposed. But that's what everyone he knew who had the Uchiha's special eyes were.

Still, by now, having mastered so many tricks on his own, it was maddening to the boy to have no comprehension at all of the details behind most of his new moves. He could learn a lot by doing them when he had clones to observe, and if he paid close attention to his own body he could learn still more.

Still, that wasn't half the level of detail you'd find on any decent scroll. And Naruto was going to all of this trouble because knowing how to implant the thing did NOT, in any way, shape or form, grant him the ability to remove it.

The Uchiha could be his test subject, but what he really wanted to do was learn how to remove it for Anko's sake, not his.

He liked Anko, and she didn't like her cursed seal.

Sadly, neither of those were true about Sasuke.

----

Tenten was not the sort of girl who typically sat on top of the Hokage monument looking out over Konoha and thinking. It usually wasn't her style. She hadn't had a bad life, and while she'd never had much of a family, there had always been a close circle of friends, although since graduating her duties as a ninja had largely overshadowed them.

That had been alright, as her team had largely replaced them, or the time she wasn't spending with her normal friends anymore, at any rate, and she even got a substitute parent out of that bargain. Although, something took the fun out of that. She was a teenage girl, and so in some ways expected to rebel against her parents. But Gai made it so EASY!

All you had to do was not be dressed in a freakish way, not dedicate your life to muscle development, or shout about the power of youth and you had a semi-comfortable distance from your parental figure.

Neji had seemed so normal, too.

The girl huffed a sigh. THAT romance had gone south... err, never truly taken off, if she was going to be honest with herself. The Hyuga prodigy may be powerful, but he had less personality than Naruto's little finger.

And speaking of Naruto, how could anyone get themselves in this kind of mess? Oh, okay, she knew about the Kyubi thing. He'd even shown her the vixen's cage, and the barn-sized animal sleeping inside.

Well, not even Naruto knew HOW this time loop thing had started happening, so that was pointless conjecture to pursue it.

So Tenten, being an ever practical girl, counted up her pluses and minuses. And, as she stepped back to look at it, she had a great deal of the former and only a few of the latter.

On the plus side, Naruto was an INSANELY great kisser! And she honestly liked him alot. He'd been very kind to her...

Minuses. Having to share him with other girls. She was still a bit weirded out over how easily he'd talked her into accepting that.

On the plus side, he gave a GREAT massage, and...

Minuses. There was having Hana treat her as a subordinate little sister.

Pluses. Clothes. That one word said it all. She'd never been able to afford much, living on an orphan's allowance and having to carefully watch her budget. It was all too easy to splurge and end up eating at a friend's house as an unwelcome guests for a couple of weeks, having blown her grocery money on frills and lovelies.

Now? She had a closet that could make a few rich girls of her admittedly limited acquaintance blush with envy. It was fabulous. She'd always managed to look good before, but now?

She shook her head, as it was entirely too possible to get all caught up on the aspects of her new wardrobe she admired, and that was only a facet of all of the things she had to consider.

Although a very pleasant facet, but still...

A very pleasant facet indeed, actually. And that, put together with those massages, and those KISSES! It was unreal!

Shaking herself back out of those thoughts again, the young girl turned again to consider her situation.

Naruto was actually a nice guy (something all too scarce in ninja), and he had all the wealth he wanted in the form of the Uchiha estate and those skills of his, all of which he'd proclaimed his willingness to teach them. Tenten was interested in those weaponsmithing abilities of his, if nothing else, as those just meshed so easily into her already present style.

Of course, Naruto wasn't apt to leave them in their comfortable little cubby holes. No, he had her pegged for learning Hinata's clan martial arts, plus the basic academy style to a much greater degree. He wanted to punch all of their chakra control ratings up through the roof, grant them training for gaining elemental affinities, teach them ninjutsu, and she didn't know what all else.

Although, add it all up together and all he'd really wanted to do was make them better kunoichi. Tenten wanted to be a better kunoichi than she was. Her goal had always been to emulate Tsunade, the legendary slug sannin, and Naruto was already talking about cross training as medic ninja.

Okay. She had to admit, there were limits to how good you could get throwing things at enemy ninja, and she'd pretty much hit that barrier already. Not having a clan or anyone to teach her techniques, her progress had more or less stalled. Naruto had not only blown off all past limits to her progress, he was EAGER, of all things, to see them do well!

That earned points in her book. People eager to see other people succeed were rare, even in this town. Gai was one of them - one of the reasons she'd been so glad to be placed on his team, in spite of his many eccentricacies.

That Naruto was another earned him a special place in her book.

Okay, she had to face it, everything he did was because he wanted her to improve and be better. Not even Gai was so interested in her advancement, although to give her teacher credit, he'd offered to let her try out Lee's training schedule, and she couldn't handle it.

Naruto had already taught her Shadow Clones and explosive tags, more than tripling her ninja arsenal. And if she let him continue, she'd be well on her way to be being much closer to a legendary kunoichi like Tsunade.

Aw, who was she kidding? He'd had her convinced at the CLOTHES!! The guy was a regular sewing miracle! All of the so-called bad stuff was faint by comparison to that! She was sitting there contemplating what had to be the single greatest opportunity of her life as if she'd been trying to convince herself to find some faults with it!

Naruto was kind, loaded, skilled, a great kisser, and determined to help her be the sort of ninja she'd always wanted to be, but never had the opportunity to reach before!

She was convinced!

Laughing at herself for being so foolish, the girl leapt onto her new giant fan, one her husband admitted had been designed based on Temari's, and allowed herself to float down over Konoha on it.

Those Wind jutsu were really useful!

----

Temari was content.

For Naruto, waking her up and convincing her to accept those memories of hers had been a simple matter of approaching her with the right code phrases she had taught him, to appear to be a secret messenger sent from Sand. None of those were expected on this assignment, but you had to have the capability to send that kind of message at need.

So, he had used those code phrases and passcodes, and she had accepted him and his message while still in her bedclothes, no questions asked. And from that chakra jewel he'd offered, recalled everything from before.

"So now what are we going to be up to?" the wind mistress cocked a hip at her husband and asked.

Naruto's grin was infectious. "Your next element. First, I was going to teach you the few Wind techniques I know that you don't, but I figured we'd both be happier if I started you off on Earth instead."

She blinked at him. Here he knew she was a Wind specialist, and he wanted to teach her about dirt? "Uh, you do know that mastering two elements is one of the requirements for being a jonin, don't you?"

From his shocked expression she guessed that he hadn't known that little tidbit.

"So... why Earth?" she figured she'd ask to see if he had any special reason.

Her husband looked at her guilelessly. "Um, because last time I fought Gaara I used an Earth Flow River to turn all of his sand into mud? He can't use that stuff when it gets wet, it gets all clumpy and hard for him to control. But if you turn it to mud it gets even worse, as not only is it wet but the particle size drops from sand to silt. So you can practically shut him down with one technique. You can even learn to cast that one without handseals, so even if you're already in a Sand Coffin you can turn the tables on him and not only survive, but defeat him as well, as if you turn enough of his stuff into mud he can't even muster that automatic Sand Shield."

Temari stood there staring in shock at him for a moment, before the wind mistress glommed onto him with all of the power her body possessed.

Here! The single WORST nightmare of her entire life, the constant nagging fear, approaching certainty, that one day the person Gaara killed when he lost his temper was going to be her, and...

He'd just shut that down?

Naruto could teach her how to defeat Gaara? Even if she was ALREADY in a Sand Coffin? Okay, that was it. She was having his BABIES!!

The girl began to weep tears of joy and relief.

----  
Author's Notes:

Well, fortunately that cleared away the last of what I had queued up in this particular vein, which should, potentially, if all things go right, open up paths for us to have more fun in the next chapter!

See you all soon.


	35. Chapter 35

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Five

by Lionheart

----

"Naruto," the Hokage folded his hands upon his desk. "I'm sure you know why you're here."

"Yes!" The boy nodded firmly. "You've finally decided to listen to my reports that the Ninja Academy training was completely skewed and inadequate!"

The old man seemed nonplused for a moment. "Not quite," he said with a sad sort of smile.

"You're removing Kakashi as the leader of Team 7?" the boy asked.

"No," Sarutobi firmly replied.

"You want to discuss my findings on the subject of earthworms!" the boy stated with some authority.

"Why?" the Hokage demanded, losing patience with the kid, "Did you carve your own face onto the Hokage monument!?! Along with, let me see," the old guy shuffled some papers. The report he wanted was right on the top. "A number of girls, ranging from a food stand waitress, to a foreign kunoichi, and at least two of Konoha's clan heiresses?"

"Well, I wanted to get them something special, and diamonds are just so overdone," the boy stated with a careless shrug.

----

"Yes! YES!!" Jiraiya screamed rolling about on his back. "Just like that!"

"What are you doing?" Ino came close to ask Naruto, who had been watching this scene with some amount of clinical detachment.

The boy turned a megawatt grin on her. "You know how I've been delaying doing too much training under this guy, because it made me feel awful to do all of that vamping as a girl?"

"Uh huh," she nodded, then motioned toward the insensate sannin covered in his own drool. "So, what's that got to do with this?"

The boy gave her a happy shrug. "Well, you see, I was wondering why those illusion techniques were 'demonic this' and 'demonic that', and it gave me another idea. So I'm trying it out on the old fart."

"More! MORE!" the sannin screamed, lost in his own world.

Ino turned a curious gaze back toward her husband. "He doesn't sound like you've got him in a demonic anything."

"That's exactly my point!" Naruto returned to her brightly. "I was wondering why those illusions were all demonic, so I created one that wasn't."

The Toad Sannin let out a long moan and passed out, unconscious and still covered in drool.

"So," Ino smacked her lips in curiosity. "What was he seeing?"

"An illusion where he was watching a hot spring of about seventy two young girls, and they invited him to join them. A kind of a cross between a Harem technique, a normal illusion, and his own fantasies. He filled in most of the details out of his own subconscious, just like most of those fear activated illusions draw on stuff they've tapped from deep underneath the conscious mind. I used the same thing here. That way I don't have to be privy to what he likes." Naruto nodded seriously.

Ino considered that solemnly for a moment. Okay, that sounded fair. "So, do you think he'll train you now?"

Naruto snorted. "Train me? He'd gladly commit suicide for me! That was his third time under the technique!"

----

"Sasuke Uchiha! I challenge you! I will prove that hard work is better than being a genius!"

Sasuke turned to face Lee in his typical 'I don't care about anyone else' pose that might also be interpreted as 'don't bother me, I'm taking a crap in my pants' look so often seen on young toddlers.

However, instead of his usual arrogant reply the Uchiha's features contorted briefly, and he lifted both hands to sink his index fingers two knuckles deep in both nostrils simultaneously before replying, "Not now. I did a boo-boo, and I don't have time to clean up and fight you before the test. We will have our contest after, if that is alright with you?"

Staring in shocked disbelief at the yellow wet spot forming on the front of the Uchiha's shorts, along with the trails of moisture going down both legs, Lee could only nod in amazed disgust.

Sakura had her very first 'I can't believe he DID that! That's DISGUSTING!!' moment concerning the Uchiha, and could barely believe her eyes.

The large crowd of fangirls drawn there by other girls dropping hints that a big fight starring the Uchiha was going to happen had thoughts along a very similar vein.

Most there began to revise those thoughts of having a happy life with him.

Ino carefully steadied Naruto's body so no one would notice that he wasn't in it just then.

Kakashi, or someone who looked exactly like him, arrived to usher everyone off to the test without any further delays. So when the Uchiha came back to himself he was already inside the center with people shoving disgusted and disapproving looks his way, and no way to escape those without failing.

He turned to leave anyway, but a voice he couldn't identify sounded in his ear. "In your shorts are three explosive notes, primed to detonate the moment you leave this chamber."

He thrust a hand down quick and found one of them. Then he noticed the looks of all of the class on him and desisted his search for the rest until he could sit down and try to conceal those motions.

Ino, in on the joke but acting out her part beautifully, sidled up to Sakura just as the Uchiha realized he'd shoved a hand inside of his pants with the whole room watching, and she said, "You know what? I don't want to be your rival anymore. You can have him."

"Yah, you can count me out too," Tenten openly agreed with her. "I mean, there's bloodline status, but there's also potty training."

Sakura was mortified.

"No! I do NOT want to play with 'Your little brown friend'!" Naruto shouted aloud to the whole audience, after Sasuke had seemingly whispered a request to him. "What kind of sick bastard are you, man?!?"

Then he laid out the Uchiha with one strong punch, a right hook, as it were, and shouted down at the unconscious body, "Don't ever ask me that again! Don't you remember? I told you, that's what you've got Sakura for!!

All eyes turned to the pink-haired kunoichi, who shrank in on herself in mortal fear of their reactions, and almost ready to cry that she'd wasted so much time on the Uchiha - or that he and Naruto both thought so poorly of her!

Of course, Sasuke had asked nothing of the kind. But that wasn't what was important. What got everyone's attention was the reply Naruto had shouted, and that's what they'd recall of that conversation.

"All right, settle down!" Ibiki entered the examination room.

Moments later, the head or Torture and Interrogation found he was looking up at the next in the line of genin out to receive the tokens assigning them to their random seats, and found he was staring at the Uchiha, held up between two orange clad shadow clones with clothespins over their noses.

The prestigious bloodline carrier was unconscious and had evidently soiled himself quite badly.

"Never mind," one of the clones shouted loudly. "Such is the power of the Sharingan that even out cold and covered in his own bodily wastes, Sasuke cannot fail this chunin test!"

They had retrieved the Uchiha's token and taken him to his seat before the jonin's stunned mental process restarted themselves, and by then it would be a trifle late to object, seeing as how the clones had deposited the heir to Konoha's most prestigious clan in his chair, head down on his desk, and struck themselves, vanishing in poofs of smoke.

Objecting now would require moving the soiled child, and that would mean touching him and... just, no. Not gunna happen. They had orderlies to look after that part of the torture and interrogation process, and he wasn't going to go back to those bad old days when he had that part of the job himself. Not over something so trivial.

And, ironically, as Ibiki reflected to himself, the boast made by those clones was right. The way Ibiki had this exam set up, the Uchiha could afford to sleep right through it and would still pass because of the tenth question.

He'd have to rethink that part of this exam.

When the Uchiha woke up twenty minutes later and began to make carefully hidden motions, the head examiner had had enough, and Ibiki called out loudly, "Sasuke Uchiha, while it is not strictly cheating, two points off for wanking during class. Now get your hands out of your shorts and do the test!"

A moment later, he added, "Oh, and I don't want that pencil back when you're finished with it."

A further moment of thought provoked another addendum. "You can expect me to send you the cleaning bill for the chair and the floor, as well."

So many people, including the proctors, where sniggering over this exchange that the stress levels never got so high, and they had record numbers pass.

----

"Why did you do that, Sasuke?" a random fangirl desperately demanded as they concluded the test successfully, asking for him to say something, ANYthing, to set her doubts to rest.

Although what that could be... it would have to be a doozy!

The Uchiha's features underwent a brief contortion, before Sasuke replied, "My parents told me that an Uchiha has to play with his poo in order to activate the highest levels of our bloodline!"

Unfortunately for the reputation of the Uchiha clan in general, he'd said this in a very loud voice in what was still a very crowded room.

And, as Sasuke regained control of himself, it wasn't as if he could actually deny that statement, as to retract it he'd have to give some version of the truth, and saying you had to kill your best friend wouldn't be any better received than that previous statement was.

"Hey Dork!" Temari called out from across the room, secretly hiding her glee over what her husband had arranged to happen. "They're called clan SECRETS for a reason! We don't want to know what you weirdoes at Konoha do behind closed doors!"

Suddenly all of the other genins from Konoha realized that to support the Uchiha in this case meant they would be joining the image now being formed by the other villages that they were all closet deviants, and did their best to start protesting that image, distancing themselves from the Uchiha at once!

All but the most devoted fangirls began to dump Sasuke like rats out of a sinking ship, and most of those took care to tell Sakura that she'd won, when all the girl wanted to do at that point was to deny her relationship to him herself!

But, instead, she got left holding the bag.

SOMEONE had to bear the next generation of Uchihas. And it looked like she'd been elected by the female population of her village. The girl wanted to cry when the third former rival in a row gave her a 'good luck with the potty training' as she bowed out of the fight to leave it all to Sakura.

"Yeah, good thing for you you're already acquainted with his... habits," the last of the fangirls told her before leaving her alone with the responsibility.

Sakura broke down crying on the spot.

----

Lee was almost apologetic when a newly washed Sasuke stormed up to him after the written test.

Off in the background, Sakura was crying, inconsolable. She'd only wanted him because everyone ELSE did!! She'd wanted to prove she was better than all those girls who'd teased her by getting the guy they all wanted. It wasn't fair to leave her to him when THEY DIDN'T WANT HIM ANYMORE!!!

For Lee, any fight against the Uchiha would be pointless. The bloodline heir had already proved, beyond any doubt, that hard work was superior to being an Uchiha. No one in Konoha could doubt that now.

Fighting him would be pointless.

So, when Sasuke challenged him, Lee sadly shook his head and declined.

No need to degrade the Uchiha further. He was already defeated. Bruises would only add to that, reinforcing the fall of a formerly great clan.

Although how ANYBODY had respected them when they had such habits!

Sasuke was left, fists shaking in despair and rage, as Lee simply turned his back and departed, leaving him without a target to vent his emotions on.

And his Sharingan was no help to him in getting out of this situation!

----

Sasuke was not good at talking his way out of anything - as The Last Uchiha, he'd never needed to. All of the respect granted to him and his clan had washed away most minor stuff like a cleansing wave. For the longest time, he could do no wrong at all in the eyes of the village.

Now he was a public embarrassment. Other villages were whispering about Konoha and the strange sort of deviants they had there, and it was all due to that same Last Uchiha.

A clan that had once brought them major respect and envy was now just as major a disgrace.

They couldn't even point to any huge success to offset the embarrassment he'd brought them. Not even his strongest supporters could point out any major accomplishments to date by their Uchiha.

He'd gone on only one C-rank mission, and even by the highly flattering report of his instructor, he hadn't done very much. Thinking that was an oversight, they sought out Kakashi and pressed him for details, and what those eager supporters of the Uchiha discovered was that the Copy Cat ninja had grossly inflated all of the parts during which he'd praised Sasuke during his reports.

Sasuke had nearly committed suicide out of terror during his first fight of more than two seconds in length. He'd thrown ONE shuriken during that entire battle as his sole contribution, and that was at the instigation of one of his teammates. Then he'd gotten beaten up on the bridge by a person who wasn't even a real ninja, just trained as a servant by a missing one!

There was nothing to be proud of in that lackluster performance.

As his supporters failed to find evidence for their belief in his greatness their numbers began to dwindle, and those who remained grew less vocal as the rest of the town soured on Sasuke Uchiha.

It was not a change that Sasuke was prepared for. Nor was Sasuke equipped to deal with it. His silent 'reject everyone as beneath me' routine was not well suited to winning over their affections once those had already been lost.

Simply put, as The Uchiha, he'd never NEEDED to talk his way out of trouble or convince people of anything, so he plainly lacked those skills now, and it was a lack that cost him dearly.

It was not until that moment that he had any inkling at all how pathetic were his people skills.

But, you never TRY to win friends and influence people, and you discover when you need to that you simply aren't good at it.

The Uchiha found that he had no ability at all to change their opinions once they began to decide that he was not worth their veneration.

Into this gap, Naruto stepped, getting Kurenai to approach the Hokage, with him there waiting as a stack of paperwork, following along that line that got Kakashi fired as Team 7's instructor, and the boy's secret parentage revealed.

Ino had actually suggested that, as the way she explained it nature abhorred a vacuum, and so with the loss of someone to respect, the townsfolk WOULD fill someone to fill that slot.

It might as well be the revealed son of the Fourth Hokage as anyone.

With the loss of their preconceptions that the Uchiha were all priceless treasures to be cherished, and that Sasuke was some jewel of rare and infinite price to be nurtured and protected, the people of Konoha were well prepared to have another of their long held notions reversed.

In an odd kind of symmetry, the town simply gave each one the label they'd once attached to the other. There was the valuable one to be encouraged and treated favorably, even given deals on goods bought at shops and things. Then there was the pariah, the one to be despised, hated and overcharged for everything, while given secret (or not so secret) glares and sneers.

Neither boy was well prepared to step into the social role of the other. For Naruto, it was scary as anything for the villagers to be NICE to him! But for the Uchiha, it was an entirely different world to live in where he could not just demand his way and get it!

Fortunately for Naruto, his girls would not permit him to avoid all of the villagers this time, insisting that he get used to it, as this was they way THEY would rather be treated, and as his wives, how he got treated had a BIG effect on how everyone treated them, as well!

So, like a man touching his toe into cold water, the boy began to slide carefully, hesitantly, and only a bit at a time into this new situation.

It would be good for him, but it was the hardest acclimation he'd ever done!

And, it would take some while before he'd stopped spooking when an ordinary villager called out to him a cheerful greeting.

Still, he'd want to be taking that in measured doses.

----

"Hi! Tsunade, right?" the cheerful blond boy called up to the stacked blonde woman who was seated at the gaming table of a casino in the strip she was currently frequenting. "It took me forever to get Jiraiya to tell me where to find you."

"Get lost kid," the slug sannin brushed him aside.

Naruto frowned.

----

"Wow! Would you look at that kid? He's cleaning the house out!" Tsunade grabbed her apprentice to point to a blond child she'd never seen before winning big at one of the tables. "Come on! Let's get in on some of that luck!"

"But..!" Shizune protested before being dragged along unwillingly by her teacher's insane strength.

"Your stake, madam?" the croupier asked her as the legendary medic gave herself a seat at the table.

Realizing the size of the wagers being laid on that green felt surface, the granddaughter of the First Hokage was about to bow out, but the boy stopped her with a simple statement. "She is welcome."

The child looked up to her and met her eyes with a knowing grin. "You see, I am here trying to earn money for a transplant operation. A couple in my clan are getting married, and there is a bloodline that will have to be shared. You may write out a certificate worth the price of such an operation, if you will agree ahead of time to perform it if you fail to secure your note before the end of tonight's gambling."

Adopting her best cunning grin, the legendary medic told him, "You're on!" before making out such a paper, and cashing it in for chips.

The trouble with that, as she found, was that the blond kid NEVER LOST!

After getting cleaned out of her first stake, the child again gave her a smile. "Oh, don't get up yet. Let us make another wager, just between us. I'll give you one month. If, during that time, you can manage to teach me to perform that bloodline transfer operation myself, for I am something of a medic ninja already, you see, then you get all of the winnings I collected tonight, including your redeemed certificate so you don't have to do the operation yourself."

"And if you're too much of a lump to learn it?" she inquired sourly, already suspecting some trap.

The boy suddenly looked at a loss, before shrugging helplessly and spreading his hands wide. "I've never failed to learn anything anyone has taught me."

"Then why the wager?" Shizune butted in, relieved to be seeing some possibility for money in her and her teacher's future.

"To convince her to try hard," the boy admitted honestly. "If she won if she FAILED to teach me, then she wouldn't try very hard to do so, would she?"

Both Tsunade and Shizune looked at each other, thoughts of "Um, no" obvious on their faces.

"So... what happens if she loses?" Shizune rebutted a final time, wanting to clarify so they could avoid anything too bad.

Naruto thought about it for a second, before he shrugged, stretching his fingers and boldly declaring, "Then I stop giving you two massages."

----

Shizune covered her head with her pillow to shut out the noise. Honestly, did her teacher have to shout out marriage proposals so LOUD?!?

Of course, the next morning, she had to admit that she'd NEVER seen her teacher try so hard at ANYTHING as she did at trying to teach that little blond kid the bloodline transfer technique.

That secretly made her curious about those massages herself.

----

Tsunade rolled over and got out of bed. Maybe if she were drunk she wouldn't be kept up by her apprentice shrieking out marriage proposals at the top of her lungs.

It wouldn't be so bad if only she had to wait her own turn!

The Legendary Slug Sannin then nearly fell to her knees and thank God for listening to her when the blond kid's clone appeared at her door with a bottle of massage oil in his hands and a towel over one arm.

----  
Author's Notes:

There, delayed it an extra day to see if I could get all of the humor right. Let's see if anyone noticed!


	36. Chapter 36

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Six

by Lionheart

----

They were only a day or so into his medical training and Naruto was quickly finding out Tsunade was even more dangerous than Anko when it came to him and massages.

"I'm sorry," Naruto calmly refused Tsunade's latest request. "But there are certain things I won't do for just anyone, and what you've asked is something I hold as reserved. Only my wives get to enjoy it."

The boy found himself in a freakishly strong headlock standing before an altar with a terrorized priest on the other side of it before he even knew what was happening.

He'd unfortunately used the plural form of 'wife' and she'd caught on to that. She didn't get to be a legendary ninja for nothing. Although where she got a wedding dress on such short notice astounded even him!

Shizune stood grinning confusedly beside them, and he couldn't tell if what she had on was a really nice bridesmaid's gown, or another wedding dress. Nice bouquet she had in her hands, however.

He was enough of a florist by now to appreciate that.

His mind only kicked back into gear when he heard the priest say, out of the high pitched squeak he forced out through his throat constricted by the hand presently around it, "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

The wait grew uncomfortably long.

"Um... what happens if I say no?" The blond asked through his headlock. Dang! She'd even found some way to shut down his ninja techniques!

Tsunade bent lower to whisper, sweetly threatening, in his ear. "Bad things. You don't want to go there."

"Err?" the boy sweated, hesitating. "Can I think about it?"

"No." Tsunade spoke firmly, eyelid twitching, already gritting her teeth.

"I have to go ask my other wives what they think first." The Naruto-clone struck himself in the leg and vanished.

----

After having completely destroyed the Uchiha's reputation, the Forest of Death was not quite the same experience it had been. For one thing, Sakura was far from the Uchiha obsessed fangirl and did more than squeal and let her crush do all of the work for her.

She seemed to realize that being dependent on Sasuke made it only more unavoidable for her to be linked to him in other ways. Not too long ago, that was exactly what she'd wanted. Now, with a murmur about 'potty training' she would set about her own tasks instead of playing damsel in distress for Sasuke to come bail her out of.

Naruto wasn't expecting to have time to notice this, as there was the typical daily fight against Orochimaru scheduled for that first morning, which pretty much made all other considerations moot. But strangely, that didn't seem to happen either.

Maybe he was less interested in the scatological wonder?

They hadn't been aiming for a Gaara morning. For one thing, those were more difficult to do now that Tenten was keeping her memories, as she did not have the same experience or ability at acting that Naruto had developed, and so was going through that phase where things no longer surprised her, so she couldn't just go with a natural reaction because those had worn out of her long ago, but neither could she manufacture a convincing fake one. So it was hard for her to get the news about Gaara spread throughout Konoha quite so effectively as to reach and warn Sasuke.

Sasuke was no longer at the center of news hubs anymore, either. So, with him out of the loop, so to speak, it would have been even harder to get to him that information about Gaara being unbeatable, information that had always before convinced him to go try to beat him.

It had been an ultimately unsatisfying reset for Naruto, who'd been wanting to do more study about the subject of that cursed seal, and had been kind of eager for Orochimaru to deliver it so he could get on with his studies of it.

The second disappointment had been that he'd been expecting to face Sasuke in the prelims, since this was a 'get Kakashi fired' reset and thus the jonin would do some board manipulation to get them to face each other. And, well, Naruto had some anti-Sharingan measures he'd wanted to try out.

Instead, he got to see Sasuke sticking a Thousand Birds technique through Lee's chest, killing the hard worker instantly.

That had been surprising, as Sasuke hadn't KNOWN the Thousand Birds on any other repeat. So, someone had to have taught him, and the only person who knew it should have been Kakashi, and there really ought to have been no time for them to be alone together, since they'd been in the forest and all.

Up on the balcony, Hana's eyes had narrowed in understanding.

Already a chunin herself, she'd been there to cheer on Naruto, and of course her younger brother. Even if they fought each other, it did Kiba good to lose to her husband, especially as gentle and complimentary as Naruto was as he did it. But it also eased her mate's reception by the Inuzuka clan enormously to have that bond between the two develop, as it did when Kiba saw how enormously strong her husband was.

But now her thoughts were launched down a different course. Only Kakashi could have or would have taught Sasuke that technique. And team 7 had been in the forest, where there shouldn't have been any opportunities for the lazy instructor to train the arrogant bastard.

Oh yes, it had not taken her many repeats to learn to use her mate's terms for those two ninja.

Obviously, Kakashi was willing to cheat the rules when he cared to, as there was no other explanation than that the jonin had slipped into the forest and taught him while the test was going on. Naruto had thought Sasuke was just doing more brooding than usual when he'd slipped into his tent and wouldn't come out for hours on end. More brooding had kind of been expected. But no, it was fairly obvious now what they'd done. The Uchiha had gone into his tent to get out of sight, where Kakashi would have met him to Body Flicker them both off (since Sasuke didn't know that technique) to someplace private to train, then back again once they were finished.

Kakashi was an elite jonin, or had been one at any rate before he'd let his skills start to degrade through laziness. It would have been easy enough for him to have slipped past any guards on the test. Heck! This was Konoha! He could have waltzed right past those guards openly, and they would've thought he was there on legitimate business!

As heiress to one of the powerful clans, Hana knew from personal exposure that Konoha trusted those they loved, and Kakashi had been one of those: a genius prodigy from a distinguished family, and for many years carrier of their most beloved bloodline, as well.

All things members of this village adored.

He could get away with breaking a few rules. And, apparently, had done so in order to train Sasuke in his most secret technique. Although, from the look of surprise on the jonin's face when the match was called, he hadn't wanted Lee to be the other participant in that fight.

It made sense, as the jonin had no grudge against the green clad boy that she knew of, they were all against her husband. So, the Copy Cat had trained up Sasuke to 'get revenge' on him, but the Uchiha had ended up facing Lee in the preliminaries instead.

So, once again, the question became 'who'd manipulated the board this time'? And for that, it was pretty obvious. Couldn't have been the Hokage, as the jonin's efforts had always slipped by the old man before. So, that left whoever it was that was the unknown third party Naruto had told her of.

One thing she had realized and had to love about resets: seeing things go one way, and knowing they'd always do so again unless changed, eliminated most of the guesswork out of trying to find explanations behind things.

"Hey Sasuke!" Naruto shouted down from the balcony beside her, just as Sasuke was finished offing Lee. "You can kill someone, but that doesn't stop you from being a poo-fondler!"

The Uchiha glowered angrily at him.

----

"You don't spend time investigating an enemy you aren't going to engage," Hana told her new 'pack' as she thought of her husband and his other wives.

"Well, we already knew that. Didn't we? I mean, how many invasions have we lived through so far?" Ino quipped from where she was lying around, waiting for Naruto, who entered with Temari.

The Sand kunoichi and he had already been talking.

"What you did with Sasuke is called a character assassination, or the trade term among us ninja is more often a social assassination. They're harder to do than simply slipping a knife in between someone's ribs, but also can be far more devastating." The wind mistress shrugged, feeling chatty. "That you got away with one is really amazing, as ninja are supposed to be more on their guard against that sort of thing, but you fooled a whole village!"

"A big part of that is that Sasuke didn't defend himself, thinking he was 'above that'," Naruto declared, using the authority of experience as his guide.

Hana bluntly interrupted this conversation. "Naruto. We must get more information on our enemies. Next reset, why don't you use the clan nose to get Orochimaru's scent during one of those fights in the Forest of Death?"

Her husband rubbed his nose. "Why? I already know he's there, don't I?"

The Inuzuka clan heiress smiled for him. It was a sly one. "You don't have the same experience with our clan techniques as I do, or you'd already know. Once you know his scent pattern then you can show us to a spot where he's left it. After that, we can use that to track him all over town. 'Ok, he's been here, he's been there, and he interacted with these people.' The sort of information that tells us who he has working for him, where he goes and what he does in a way that lets us memorize his entire route through town."

She got treated to several looks of shocked understanding.

"That's AWESOME!" Ino twittered out in glee.

Hana tried not to brag as she preened, just a bit, under the attention. "I ask this because I think he's been there, at the chunin preliminaries. He might be our unknown third party whose been manipulating that board."

Even more shocked understanding. It felt good to be an alpha.

The boy scratched his head, thinking, "But my tail. That thing when I can find all of you..."

"That's a scent marker. Those are physical things. Those don't pass a reset. But a scent pattern," Hana chuckled. "That's like knowing someone's face. You get one of those, and you always remember it. Naruto, you ought to know that by now."

Naruto nodded, suddenly businesslike. "Ok. Now I want everyone's opinions. Tsunade, the slug sannin, wants to get married to me. Votes?"

Instant strong reactions from all sides. Most of them powerfully good.

Tenten surged up off of her pillow. "Could you get her to join us during the resets?"

Having thought about it, Naruto nodded. "I think so."

Hana was shocked. Having a legendary sannin join this pack? Okay, maybe it would be good to step back from being the Alpha female. She nodded ferally. "That's some serious firepower you're talking about adding. We need it. Let's do it!"

"Um..." Hinata pushed her fingers together.

"Thoughts, my first and beloved?" Naruto joined her in a hug from behind.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata ventured to ask her husband. "Can we add my teacher to this? I miss her. Kurenai-sensei has been the closest thing I've had to a mother since my own died, and I miss being able to talk with her. I think all of us girls could really use her advice, and she is older..."

She was clearly running out of reasons when Naruto stopped her, putting his hands over hers so she couldn't push her fingers together. "Hey! Don't need to convince me! You had my agreement when you said you missed her!"

The shy heiress met his kind eyes, saw the sincerity there, and melted.

"I'd like there to be a couple of conditions," Temari considered this aloud. "First, we all get her to train us in everything she knows, that goes for both the slug sannin and Hinata's teacher. If we're all going to be a family then it's only right and fair for that to happen. Plus, Naruto, you've picked up your own training in those areas in such a spotty manner that it's hard for you to train us in medicine or illusions, and we need those. We're a family, and it's going to be important that none of us die, even after the resets, so medical skills are an absolute must!"

Hana was nodding. "Lots of human medical techniques can be adapted to use on animals, too. Our clan beasts will be stronger for it."

"About that," Naruto interrupted with his own idea. "We've got several years before that latest litter of puppies are useful to us as combat familiars."

"The rest of the clan dogs are already assigned," Hana interrupted, frowning, but quieted submissively when Naruto overruled her.

"No, that's not what I'm thinking at all," the boy said with a very wide grin. "I know they are, but had another suggestion in mind. We need adult combat companions, right?"

Several nods all around from girls who had been excited to be introduced to the coveted Inuzuka family techniques, and a bit disappointed that they couldn't use some of the best of them to fight off the upcoming invasion.

Naruto sat down so one of him was cuddling each of his wives, having to stop Ayame from serving them all cookies to get her included, too. "So, what does everyone think about clan tigers? I know some really good ones out in the Forest of Death. We've run into them more than a few times during the test. They're big enough to ride on comfortably, and already great fighters."

Hana thought about it for a moment. "It's harder to train adults, but it can happen. We don't know any training techniques for tigers, all of ours are rather specific to dogs, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't learn or develop new ones. We've got the time to fully explore more techniques."

"And we can use Naruto's 'Time Dilation' illusion, useful for cramming three days into one second, to have the time we'd need to train the tigers to get used to us despite the resets!" Temari finished for them all excitedly.

After sucking on that thought a moment, Hana had to agree. "That could work. But I'm still not giving up my dogs!"

"No one's asking you to," Ino reassured her. "We just need adult fighting pets for the rest of us." She'd never told Naruto how narrowly her team squeaked by to get to the prelims, but she'd become almost desperate for more combat capacity, over and above what he was already teaching them.

"Um... Naruto... he could learn to help them get along together, couldn't he?" Hinata shyly asked.

None of the girls could disagree and say that was impossible. So what if cats and dogs were famous for fighting? He'd already done HOW MANY things they all would've thought impossible?

Hana was nodding. "As a vet, I've seen plenty of farm animals, and farmers have no problems keeping cats and dogs at the same time. As work animals they get along just fine, or well enough at any rate."

"And you gotta admit," Tenten interjected smoothly, with a big grin on her features. "It would fit the cat motif Naruto's already got on our ninja garb!"

----

Ino could hardly have been more pleased at all of the special training she was getting from her husband (and she liked that thought, HER husband! Even if she did have to share him, it hardly felt like that most of the time, as he had so many clones all over the place she'd had all of the privacy to be alone with him that she could want, both for training, and just for talking, and this thing where the girls got together scratched her itch for female chatting as well).

Really, it was as if she'd had this explosion of extra family members! And she'd always wanted a couple of sisters.

However, trying to disguise everything was a bit awkward, and as she left that meeting where Naruto and the wives discussed plans for the future resets, and the general direction of their training and stuff in general, she saw her genin teammates, Shikamaru and Choji, obviously waiting for her outside of the building.

Ayame's family restaurant was the most convenient place for most of them to meet without going all of the way to the outskirts of town to train at the Uchiha properties. And any time Choji was waiting OUTSIDE of a restaurant, rather than inside and eating, something major was up!

And what that was was pretty obvious to her by now. Shikamaru had started to suspect something. Training over the resets must have started to change her behavior, and from his perspective the blonde girl had changed overnight.

"Hi guys!" Ino stopped before the pair of them, raising her hand to wave a brief greeting, pretending nothing was wrong. "What's up?"

"That's what we should be asking you," Shikamaru told her over folded arms, where he was leaned up against the side of the building. Lolling his head around to look at her more closely, he told her, "One night you had trouble talking without mentioning Sasuke, then you drop him like you'd never heard a less interesting subject. You never bring him up again. But there is no break up or fight to explain it."

"Oh, go back to being lazy!" she told him. "I'm too troublesome, remember? Go and watch some clouds, or something."

Ino was about to go stomping off in disgust, but before she'd even realized it, she'd been caught in his Shadow Bind technique. The extra darkness had been disguised by their standing in the shadowed side of the building. So she was well and truly stuck, as Shikamaru went on speaking.

The lazy genin was uncharacteristically alert as he went on speaking. "Unlike certain other teams, we at least pay attention to our teammates. One day you were a Sasuke-obsessed fangirl with among the worst skills of any ninja of Konoha. Yet overnight you become quite skilled and are holding secret meetings with other Konoha ninja who aren't acting the way they used to. Our instructor doesn't know what's happened to you, or where you got those abilities, or what those meetings are for. So there are some questions that have to be asked."

Shikamaru stood up. "So we are going to march to where Asuma is waiting so he can start to ask them."

Ino's mind was running furiously all the time they made their walk to where Asuma was waiting for them, her body under the control of her teammate's Shadow Bind technique so she had no choice but to follow along as they walked there.

Her face was flaming in helpless embarrassment by the time they got there.

"Now, Ino..." Asuma, her team's jonin instructor began.

"If that is who you really are," Shikamaru interjected.

Asuma gave him a glance and the lazy boy shut up, going back to watching clouds while listening intently. Choji did what he'd been doing all this time, munching on potato chips while looking concerned.

"Ino," Asuma resumed speaking to her gently, but with concern. "You have been acting very differently since the start of the chunin exam. We just have some questions about your new abilities."

"Fine," she released the word with a sigh, wishing she could do other than copy Shikamaru's movements, because right now was the wrong time to be looking at clouds. "I joined a secret cult of Naruto-worshipers who believe that he is the incarnation of the God of Ramen and we gather together for secret meetings where he can pour broth over us and slurp our hair."

Choji choked on his chips and Shikamaru got so surprised that he accidentally released his technique, letting he get back control of her body again.

Ino clobbered him a good one, then turned back to her teacher, hands on her hips, as she explained. "Naruto's got a new secret technique that he made up all by himself. I don't know how he did it, but he's got this thing where two or more people can get inside of his head and share ninja tricks together, but it all happens really fast. He needed me to help set it up, but we involved some other girls and we're all learning together. It's like a club. I'm picking up stuff from a weapons user named Tenten, a Sand chick named Temari, and a few other kunoichi. We all share what we know, and we're all getting better fast. I knew I stank as a ninja, and this is really helping me out!"

"And what can you add to that? You had no skills worth trading!" Shikamaru got up, rubbing his head where she had hit him.

The blonde girl rolled her eyes. "Like I said, they couldn't even have started it without me! That sort of paid my entry fee right there!"

"I don't understand," Choji paused in his munching of chips. "You guys get inside of Naruto's mind for this?"

Ino went all glittery, unconcerned with the sudden, sharp interest of her teacher or Shikamaru. "Oh! It's beautiful! You'd never guess the kind of wonderful things he has in there! Most minds are kind of boring, but he has this pool, and a..." she broke off, blushing and giggling.

"So is that why you dumped Sasuke?" Shikamaru continued to rub away at the bump on his head.

Jerked out of her pleasant memories to face something completely unrelated to her wonderful thoughts, it was all Ino could do to blink. "Sasuke? Sasuke who?"

Asuma smiled, clapping a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder reassuringly. "You see? It's just young girls being young girls after all, just as I told you. It's not unusual for them to change friends like socks at that age."

"Hey!" Ino shouted, hands going down to form fists by her sides.

Unbeknownst to her, not far away Tenten was having a serious discussion with Gai, after Lee and Neji had brought her before him, once Shikamaru had pointed out that she'd been displaying skills no one knew she had before.

Amazingly enough, they'd both been around Naruto enough by then that their excuses matched on all of the important details.

----

"So, what happened here?"

Looking up at the senior ANBU, the two junior masked official ninja of Leaf drew to attention. "Unknown at present! There were no witnesses of the event itself! Although, a baker reported seeing two individuals departing quickly from the scene. Description of what they were wearing matches the reported uniforms of the Akatsuki!"

The senior ANBU looked down upon Sasuke's lifeless body, one whose eyes had been gouged out, and had suspicious brown stains around the mouth. "So, Itachi got his revenge for Sasuke revealing they were a secret clan of poo-wielders already, hmm? Dang. I'm going to have to pay off my debt to Naoko. I bet it was going to take him another week."

----  
Author's Notes:

Well, my brother likes it. That has to count for something.


	37. Chapter 37

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Seven

by Lionheart

----  
Author's Prequel: Yes, I am afraid that having Lee appear, after his death, was an error. Now I'm all depressed, having SO FEW errors when I've written enough material to represent a significant fraction of the original!

I OBVIOUSLY NEED MORE!! Yes!! That will fix everything! People shout about my errors because they STAND OUT! I've only got a handful! That will change when I willingly introduce HUNDREDS OF THEM!!

----

Since this was a 'get Kakashi fired' reset, Naruto didn't have to wait for an opportunity to approach Kurenai, as she was already his teacher.

Currently her eyes were wide and her jaw hanging open as she regarded the insensate toad sannin who was covered in his own drool. And she'd watched that happen.

Once she'd recovered herself a bit from the amazement and cleared her throat, she said, "Brilliant use of illusions, Naruto. Ninja are trained to be resistant to fear, but they aren't trained to resist pleasure, so they really would find this more difficult to fight against. And it's use as a bribe is really outstanding. Would he really give you a summoning scroll if you asked?"

Those were among the most precious and well guarded of techniques.

Naruto's only answer was to grin and summon a toad as big as a horse to sit on.

The jonin's eyes widened yet further. "So he has."

The blond boy was giddy. "We're also using pleasure/pain illusions to help train our clan tigers, to reward or punish behavior respectively. It works until we have better methods worked out."

"Clan tigers?" she blinked at him several times.

Naruto popped to his feet, eager to tell her, "Oh yeah! They've got ones as big as horses over at the Forest of Death! They're better fighters than most chunin, and would probably BE that grade if they could use jutsu! So, we're training them! Did you know that Konoha tigers happen to be a social animal? They hunt in groups, like lions! Hana is really impressed. She says that will make everything a lot easier."

"What easier?" The jonin was, admittedly, having a touch of trouble following all of his thoughts, he was introducing new concepts so quickly.

Naruto sighed, slowing down the pace of his explanations. "Hana Inuzuka has joined a small study group I've formed. We're all agreed to share all of our techniques, and in return for a bunch of secret Wind techniques and weapon use and a whole bunch of other stuff, as her contribution Hana is sharing her clan's Beast techniques."

"That's against the law!" Kurenai began sputtering. "Clan techniques are..!"

"Perfectly acceptable for sharing among spouses. Think of it as a harem, if you will, but I've married a ton of girls, and as part of my new family we are acting to strengthen each other's techniques and fighting styles, and that includes sharing those restricted jutsu."

That put Kurenai back, and she unintentionally blurted out her first thought, "Hinata will be crushed."

"Why?" Naruto returned, honestly puzzled. "She was the first member of it, and would have been the ONLY spouse I had if she hadn't gone and recruited a second all by herself, just to boost her own confidence in her ability to handle me. That opened up room for a third to volunteer, and a handful have decided since then that this arrangement suited them."

Yes. He might have... encouraged, such decisions on their behaves, such as by administering the odd massage or creating an outfit or two. Still, those decisions had all been theirs.

He'd just provided input to help those decisions along. That's all.

The boy put his arms behind his head and casually examined the sky. "In fact, Hinata made me promise to offer you a chance to come down and check in on all of us, sort of be our den mother. The girls wanted to have an older woman to confide in, and you could make sure that nothing inappropriate was going on at the same time. That is, if you wanted to..?"

Inappropriate? The jonin blinked. The kid had a HAREM!! The whole thing was inappropriate! Well, technically legal, she supposed, suddenly recalling the various bloodline protection laws in place, put in there by Konoha's major bloodline carrying clans and bolstered by some others for fast recovery in cases of catastrophe (as nobody could be sure that what happened to the Uchiha could only ever happen just the once, or that a sudden loss during a war might not do effectively the same thing to an unlucky family), but still!

Shoving those scattered thoughts aside for the moment, the illusion mistress firmed up her resolve and nodded. "Yes, Naruto. I'd like to come down and see if anything inappropriate is happening. Your 'girls' might need counseling, after all."

Naruto grinned.

----

Illusions could be used for torture. Kurenai knew this. She also knew, from having seen his demonstration, that they could be employed for pleasure as well. Once she'd had a second to think on it, it had become apparent to the jonin that what Naruto could possibly be doing was something awfully similar to what he'd openly said they'd been doing to tigers, using pleasure or pain illusions to reward or punish behavior, brainwashing those girls that way.

It didn't add up with what she'd seen of the kid's character, or what Kakashi said about him. But she was enough of a ninja not to discount the possibility.

After having made the short trip to a ramen stand, then up the steps in the back of the store to the modest home above it (where Naruto explained they had been having most of their meetings), she had to admit that this was looking less and less like a typical cult all of the time.

For one thing, Naruto just didn't have that 'greasy preacher' feeling of a cult leader. Secondly, successful brainwashers are in control, it's a requirement, and from the number of requests, catcalls, ordinary conversation bits and other things to which he just replied "Yes, dear," in a humble tone as he was asked to deliver hairspray, or a massage, or to go get groceries, this was a fairly normal human relationship despite its odd angles.

That made Kurenai very curious indeed, as she was also enough of a ninja to look beneath the surface and to be able to discard wrong data, and her first thought of a brainwashing cult just didn't bear up under the barest scrutiny of the evidence.

In fact, it felt like she'd just walked into the home of a comfortable, well adjusted, normal (well, normal by ninja standards, anyway) family!

Which, should have been impossible, since he'd only known most of these girls for a couple of weeks. But, then again, the female jonin had to sigh and revise her beliefs yet again in favor of the evidence. People just did not act that comfortable around each other without LOTS of practice!

Seeing Ino, who was among the most status conscious young genin girls in town, lying down with her hair in a towel, just fresh from a bath, no makeup and only wearing a bathrobe, as one of Naruto's clones rubbed her feet and ankles... that sort of cozy domestic scene was very typical for husbands and wives, but NOT for blushing teenagers or girlfriends out to impress a person!

It was a 'I've seen you at your worst and love you anyway' scene of domestic love and bliss. That sort of harmony didn't come out of nowhere, and often didn't exist at all, even among older established married couples of many years. It showed a genuine bond of a sort that couldn't be faked, well, not well enough to fool her, at any rate!

She hadn't gotten her jonin rank out of nowhere, after all!

Kurenai began, only in that moment, to believe those girls might actually love the guy and not have married the village pariah out of some sort of duress like enslavement or brainwashing. No jutsu she knew of could evoke feelings of love and kindness, and Naruto was positively oozing joy over the privilege of rubbing Ino's feet!

Kurenai had once heard love described as "A feeling you get where it is a privilege to hold your wife's hair out of her face so it doesn't get in the way as she barfs in the toilet." She'd never actually seen that happen before, but this Naruto... she could believe it. He truly loved them that much, and would be happy, ecstatic even, to do exactly that.

It was a sort of tenderness, mixed with devotion, and a dash of good, solid affection (although that didn't half describe it adequately).

He cherished those girls!

And it didn't go only the one way, either. She could tell that each and every one of those girls would find themselves hopping up out of the skylights in glee over having morning sickness, as it would be a sign they'd have his child.

She shook herself out of that imagery, as there was nothing there to suggest that any of those girls had entered into a state of pregnancy. But it was a compelling image all the same.

Those girls would gladly suffer discomfort, bloating, and a whole range of other difficulties to make that boy happy, and the thing was that went the other way just as far, with him being honored to fetch and carry for them, treating each girl as if she was her own precious princess to him. Each one a jewel incomparable to the others.

It honestly made Kurenai a little envious. Asuma was, at best, an indifferent suitor. But he'd shone out when contrasted to the rest of her admittedly small group of admirers.

And she had to quash a jealous feeling, the urge to punish someone else for being happier than she had any hope of being. It was a momentary thing, and not all that strong, but it still surprised her. She'd thought herself above all that. Only, in that moment, she wasn't an instructor concerned about her shy and delicate student, or a jonin worried over possible illegal activities, but a cave woman who felt envious over another female having gotten a better catch, and about to reach for her club to try and take it from her, if only just to destroy it so her rival couldn't have it!

That thought was very unlike her, and she admonished herself sternly over it, all inside of her head.

And, in that moment, she had to acknowledge that what she'd been feeling was real, as that type of deep, gut reaction only came when deep down you knew that what you were seeing was real, and you'd never have the luck be so happy yourself.

The illusion mistress heaved a deep sigh, resolving to go out and seek Anko. It was time the two of them got drunk again. Usually it was the other woman who came after some disappointment or other and needed the companionship of a good friend as she went out and got plastered. This evening, it would be the other way around, with Kurenai doing the same thing, only as the active one out to drag the other instead of a semi-resisting participant going along out of friendly duty to be there with a shoulder to cry on - her usual role.

Dang it! She was too young to feel a spinster! But this happy scene of marital bliss before her made her feel twice her age, at least. No small part of that being due to the fact that she felt unable to match this happy picture on her own prospects.

No, Anko would get dragged out drinking tonight. Not that the special jonin would object, it would just confuse her, and only until she'd gotten Kurenai to confess the whole thing after the red eyed woman'd gotten herself smashed over it.

Sometimes it really stank, being able to predict yourself so well.

----

Temari was happy. She was married.

Those two facts were connected.

Oh, half the time they didn't bother telling the village anything, as over time it grew boring having too many weddings all on top of one another (something that, she supposed, set her apart from other women who thought that you simply could not have enough weddings sometimes. Well, they should try it! It got boring real fast!), but still, she knew it and was willing to ride along, let the village think whatever it wanted to!

Actually, the Sand kunoichi had never seriously considered the prospect of marriage in her immediate future, as she was an outcast in her own village because of her relationship to Gaara. So casual dating, and even most friendships, had been impossible for her across most of her life. Thoughts of marriage had been like thoughts of, well, any other impossible dream! NO matter how fancy or nice the illusion, you still had to wake up and face reality.

Well, it just so happened that now her reality included a husband.

Circumstances were a bit odd, it was true, what with the harem thing and the being caught in a time loop. As they had it, however, they didn't have it so bad. Naruto was utterly devoted to them, just as much as they were to him. And none of them had to suffer any of the loneliness he'd had to, as they had each other to commiserate to and be social with.

Naruto had actually confessed to her, at one point, that a big part of the reason why he'd let Hinata talk him into including more than one girl in this whole relationship and the time loop that came with it was that in his 'Great Girl Decode' as he'd liked to call it, he'd discovered that girls needed to talk.

For her that was like pointing out that birds needed air to fly. But to him that had apparently been some great discovery, that girls actually NEEDED to talk about their feelings and things!

He'd compared it to hunger. It was just there and had to be dealt with, nor was it optional. Going without good conversations was bad for girls, even if they didn't talk about anything important.

Realizing he'd had no sisters growing up, or no mother either for that matter, she could forgive him for not knowing something so obvious. But he didn't have to pretend like he'd just uncovered one of the secrets of the universe, or something!

Still, it was awfully cute for him to try.

So, he'd said, since girls had to talk, and those conversation couldn't afford to be unchanging, in order for any girls to be included, he'd had to include more than one, so they could talk about their issues during the whole time warp thing without going batty or having no one to understand them.

Well, she had to admit, that was considerate of him. It certainly made it easier to accept everything, once taken in that light. Not that sharing him was any hardship, mind you! If anything, they felt that HE outnumbered THEM! As, even with their Shadow Clones, they could only create about a dozen each at maximum, mostly just three or four to be safe, while he typically did THOUSANDS!

It was enough to make her feel like he could marry every kunoichi in the village and not only would it not cost her anything, it was possible she'd not even NOTICE until it came time to be selecting babysitters!

"Oh? You're married to him too? I had no idea."

Then drag the other girl off into conversations.

Temari felt almost embarrassingly hedonistic thinking of it that way. Then, in the very quiet depths deep inside her soul that she'd have to discuss with the others, she also admitted that she found his tail to be a major turn-on.

Shying away from those embarrassing topics, she saw one of him enter with Kurenai beside him. Eager to be talking to an older, experienced woman about important issues like how it felt and what it meant to be turned on by one's husband's foxy bits, she rushed over to assist in the jonin's assimilation into the group so such important topics could be broached in confidence!

"Hello! Have you seen Naruto's mindscape training technique yet?" She asked the older women with a brilliant smile gracing her own face.

It would only be one reset and the woman could be convinced of the truth of their story, and then such important secrets could be shared!

----

Kurenai stared out across the village of Konoha, unburned, unblemished, and unable to believe her eyes!

There! Over there! She'd SEEN a six-tailed demon tiger appear! She'd known she had! It was unmistakable! No jutsu, no technique, no NINJA had EVER caused such feelings of helplessness and horror in her! It had been a bad reminder of just how much she'd forgotten about how terrified she'd been on the night of the Kyubi attack!

She was an illusion mistress. She knew how to fake things, and, conversely, what could not be faked. And, frankly, anyone able to create an illusion THAT real was even more of a danger than the six tailed tiger itself was! Luckily, it was known to be impossible even among the strongest illusionists.

Then there had been the demon dragon as well. It had been mind boggling. The whole town had burned, Konoha was reduced to ashes and then those ashes pounded on relentlessly until there wasn't even a recognizable crater left!

She'd been on the outskirts, among the few survivors, out there on a run for their lives and being chased by Sand and Sound ninja.

And now... there wasn't a thing to indicate it had ever happened.

Even among ninja, whole villages don't get destroyed overnight and then the next morning no one noticed a difference! Konoha had been destroyed, and now it wasn't. That merited a talk with the Hokage. She'd even dragged the boy who'd explained it all to her along so he could explain it all to him.

That had gone fruitlessly. She'd pressed until they'd had to isolate Naruto for medical evaluation, withdrawing him from the chunin exams so they could determine his mental state (and if the demon fox was escaping, even just to cause her nightmares).

After having the boy committed to the psyche ward of Konoha's general hospital, Naruto's girls had come, some alone, others in groups, to tell her how they felt about that. Hinata had actually been bold enough to scold her for having done that to poor Naruto - a boldness that made Kurenai wonder if she wasn't the one to go insane.

But Ino and Tenten had formed an odd partnership, and simply taken buckets of smelly tar and brightly colored paint, splashing them all around her house.

Kurenai had chased both laughing girls out, but the damage had been done. It would have been months to fix it and clean everything, but...

Now it was a new morning. The paint and smelly tar were gone. Sarutobi had never heard her telling wild stories about the double demon attack or the destruction of Konoha. He'd never had Naruto committed to psyche evaluation on her recommendation...

... and what's more, he'd never listened to her explanations about Naruto's ability with illusions, or fired Kakashi, or given her permission to train the son of their previous Hokage.

It was too big to be an illusion, too complex, and she'd done everything she could to test for one or dispel it anyway, not wanting to believe that what she'd been told was occurring. But it was anyway.

It was all, exactly, every point, as the boy'd described it. Time was repeating, caught in a loop, everything resetting to the first day of the most recent set of chunin exams.

And only those who'd furnished bedrooms in his mind knew anything about it.

She turned to face him, the red-eyed jonin looking down at the much shorter boy's upturned face. He'd already, very obligingly, shown the village that he was bearing enough foxy accouterments to freak out any average member of Konoha. Their reactions had been real, and far too complex or complete to have been orchestrated by one human mind. It was too large and detailed to be any kind of dream or illusion she knew of.

And nobody, nobody at all remembered any of it the day after.

Even Sakura, Naruto's teammate, had gone from a simpering, weak-willed fangirl one moment, to seeking Naruto, 'her foundation', for support against having to marry Sasuke, back to fangirl obsessed over marrying the Uchiha, then over to a scornful, sneering turncoat glad 'that demon brat' had been contained, and now back to fangirl again. That alone was too complete a job to be faked. Girls may have mood swings, but that was ridiculous!

Kurenai sighed, then nodded. "Alright. You've got me convinced. Time is caught inside of a loop. Why haven't you brought the Hokage in on this?"

The boy scowled in frustration at himself. "I've tried, but the jutsu doesn't work on him for some reason. I'm exploring why, but for the present..." the child spread his hands to indicate how helpless he was.

Hinata's teacher had to nod in understanding. Some things you could do, and others you couldn't. It was clear the boy had invented the technique himself, so could hardly be blamed for not knowing why it had certain limits. Some techniques had been in use for centuries and still no one knew all of why they would do some things and yet not others.

Sighing again, she blew out a big breath of contained air, and her frustrations with it. "Okay, kid. You've got yourself a den mother. I'll look after your girls on all of their womanly issues, give them the advice they need, and assist you in training and planning, cover you with the other jonin, and so on."

She sighed again, shaking her head as the enormity of the task faced her. "Pity we don't have Anko in on this, she'd LIKE to be facing Orochimaru over and over again."

----

Naruto stood before Anko, grinning brightly.

Then she smirked, "Okay, kid, you've got my interest. Tell me what you know already. We'll see where we go from there."

He began to list them off. "My basic three are fully mastered, seal-less and almost traceless. Body Flicker and the traveling ten likewise. I also know ..."

...a few moments later...

Impulsively, Anko grabbed the kid's head and mashed his face into her bosom. She had a son! Boyfriend! Brother! Whatever you wanted to call it! Whatever he wanted to be! Train him? Heck! She'd gladly MARRY him!! If this kid was this strong at twelve years old just think of what he'd be at fifteen, or TWENTY! Her old teacher was doomed! Did you hear her? DOOMED!!!

The special jonin broke out in mad, triumphal cackling, still crushing the kid's face into her underclad bosom, and giving him an eyeful in the bargain, and it was a significant step up from the equipment on his wives. "Oh! Boy, we are going to defeat Roachy-chan and make his life hell! Come here and give me a hug!"

She gave a long, joyful cackle. Still holding the kid's head to her chest, she whispered gleefully in his ear, "Tell me, how'd you like to know the Temporary Paralysis technique?"

"Already know it," he responded into her fleshy pillows. "Good for fighting snakes, as they are especially vulnerable to it, and it gets harder for Roachy to summon more, as he's first got to dismiss the inactive ones, costing him chakra he'd rather use on more summonings."

Having thought she had already had the perfect student, Anko had to revise that one step higher. "Say," she asked, after blinking several times. "Have you ever considered sex with an older woman?"

She was going to KEEP this one by hook or by crook, and that was one of the traditional ways women got men into their clutches. It had never worked out that way for her, but you never knew, and had to keep trying your options.

Or so she thought, anyway.

Still, the moment after she'd said it she'd started to doubt herself, as that was some awfully heavy guns to be hauling out, and he was probably too young a kid to even be considering that yet. Still, just as she was about to draw breath to retract that question, she felt a pair of hands under her trenchcoat on her fleshy globes.

Naruto had shifted his face about to be staring up at her our of her cleavage. "Can I offer you a massage and let you think about it?"

----

Tsunade looked up at the official front gates of Konoha and sighed. Far from the only entrance, they remained the most symbolic one.

Shizune, beside her, spoke reassuringly. "Really, Tsunade. Bad thoughts now? Isn't this point a little late for that?"

The legendary medic mock-snarled at her apprentice of many years. "First name basis now, huh?"

"Well, it only seemed appropriate, what with everything else and all. Legally, you and I are sisters, and were ever since we both said 'I do' to the terrified priest in front of that young man you had in a headlock over the altar." The apprentice of many years giggled girlishly.

Rolling her eyes, the legendary medic had to admit she had a point. "Ok, sis. Now you tell me, what is an old crone like me doing with some young kid?" The crone in question doubted herself, the relationship, pretty much everything after the two days of walking it had taken them to reach the town.

"Well," Shizune put a finger to her chin, pretending to think about it. "I thought it had something to do with those massages..."

Instantly, before she had a chance to continue, her suddenly revitalized teacher had picked her up and dragged the much younger woman across the entrance way and past the gates of a town she had sworn never to return to.

Yet, even as they entered, both could swear they overheard a cry of, "Now give me BABIES!!!" in a woman's voice they didn't recognize.

Shizune was smiling, even in her teacher's adamant grip. Brightly, she chirped. "Well, now we know where to find him at least!"

Tsunade smiled, and chorused with her apprentice, "Follow those cries!"

----  
Author's Notes:

Continuity errors? YEP! By the bucketful! I just re-realized that one of my most successful strategies for dealing with whining complainers before has always been to grant them MORE of whatever they bitch and moan about!

The other has always been the "unexplained, unwanted crossover" -and if you don't believe me, look up Exiled Jedi, where I put BUGS BUNNY into a Star Wars fic already several hundred pages into the plot.

If you think I can't perform a 'time-space jutsu' experiment gone wrong and suddenly dump this into a Robotech continuity, then think again!

And, if that doesn't work, there's always even more disturbing things to add.

You see, there is a true story of a hitchhiker who pulled a gun and tried to car-jack the vehicle giving him a lift. After the driver had pushed the pedal down, getting it up to above a hundred, then sideswiped a few concrete barricades, he informed his terrified passenger that he'd forgotten just who had the power in a moving vehicle, and after threatening to kill them both in a massive accident (which was also, incidentally, guaranteed if the guy shot the driver at that speed), the hitchhiker threw his gun out the window and gave himself up to be arrested, after they drove off to find some police.

As the Author, I have the power over this story. If you don't like it, only be reminded that if you're reading it, and hate it, I have every ability to make you hate it more.

I take a perverse glee out of ticking off people who nag me about making my stories better when they themselves have never written a thing! It's also so MUCH easier to have Konoha attacked by a 100ft tall marshmallow man than think up quality material! I am perfectly willing to trash a story they like, but say they hate, just to see them squirm!

I have done so on more than one occasion. In certain circles I am even famous for it.

You have been warned.


	38. Chapter 38

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Eight

by Lionheart

----

"Today is a day for deeds of greatness!" Tsunade called out from atop the Hokage monument. Turning around, she addressed her army of fellow wives and their shadow clones. "Are you ready?"

"YES!" came the responding roar of fifty throats raised in unison, chisels held aloft. A breeze gave the assembled girls' hair a stir.

"Forward!!" The granddaughter of the First shouted, pointing over the cliff.

With a roar, they surged ahead, Tsunade in the lead, racing off the top of the mountain to run down the face of it, feet sticking to the side.

In a rush, all of the other Hokage's faces got chiseled off only to be replaced by Naruto's grinning image at twice the former Hokage's size and his name carved out in loving detail below it, along with the caption "Happy Chunin Day!"

"WHY??!?" Sarutobi pled, after he'd pulled his face up out of his hands over the appalling nature of this stunt.

"Well," Tsunade drawled out casually. "We'd decided to celebrate Naruto's birthday for him today, and cakes are just overdone."

----

"Did you see that? He's going to come out from around the tree now." Even as Naruto said it, it happened, just as he described.

"Yes, I see it." Anko told him, holding her own set of binoculars on the far distant Orochimaru fight. "You've got his reactions pretty well pegged."

"I ought to. I've been fighting him long enough," the blond snorted, holding up a set of binoculars himself trained on the distant fight with Team 7.

"He's just toying with them," Shizune said, peering through her own pair, where they all waited on the vantage point.

"Hardly surprising. He is a Legendary Sannin," Kurenai said from where she was posted nearby, also looking through optics trained on the site.

"We're not invulnerable," Tsunade corrected. "Look for weaknesses. He's got some, although fewer than I would've expected."

"Couldn't Jiraiya still take him?" Anko adjusted her dial focusing knob just a tad as the fight moved farther away.

"He didn't succeed the last time I bribed him to. It was more of a stalemate, although that would be a good fight to watch again," Naruto spoke from his own place in the Spotter's Gallery overlooking the typical, everyday fight between Orochimaru and Team 7. "You learn more about what he does when he's serious when Roachy-chan is feeling pressed."

"Like those stories you told us of those times when you turned the forest into a war zone?" Shizune asked.

"Yeah, those." Naruto confirmed. "Although I wouldn't recommend them. It got pretty ugly, and no safe vantage points to watch from, what with the smoke and the fire and everything."

"I'm not surprised," Kurenai muttered, seeing as how Anko was too caught up in observed the specific details of the fight they'd been watching to speak on her own just then. "From what you describe, you have several thousand chunin effectives - your clones at the level you were then. Then you turned the entire forest into a trap, anticipated Orochimaru's every move, and still got beaten. It deserved to look like a war zone."

"Well, that was it." Anko put down her optics. "Sasuke got sealed again with that awful mark. Better move on to studying that thing."

"Not just yet." Naruto held out a hand to give her pause.

Instantly her interest perked, and she licked her lips, noting that he still had the set of binoculars he'd been using up on his face. As she raised her own once again, she inquired, "Oh? Something special planned?"

"Yup," was his response.

"Husband darling," Tsunade's voice became sweetly threatening. "Share!"

He chuckled. "A new approach."

An explanation became unnecessary as they saw the results for themselves unfolding out on the field.

"Ouch," Shizune muttered unnecessarily.

"So, how's the 'Thousand Gaaras' approach to fighting Orochimaru suit you?" Naruto asked them all a moment later.

"Short," Anko snarled, lowering her glasses again, face disgusted. "I've never seen the old bastard run away that fast from anything."

"You taught the demon container from Sand how to use our Shadow Clone technique?" Tsunade mumbled out, surprised. "How? When did you find the TIME? He's not in these resets, is he?"

"No, he's not. I haven't found a way to use our link to get any guys riding out the resets with us yet," Naruto frowned. "I had to befriend him, then use our Time Dilation illusion to teach him. It turns out demon containers have a natural advantage with the technique. He can create almost as many clones as I could when I was just starting out."

"I still can't believe you took one of the most cherished secret techniques of the highest level Sharingan and made your own version of it," Kurenai mused under her breath. "That's just so above what I'd expect... And then to revise it into a TRAINING tool!!"

She resumed shaking her head.

Several others shared looks. Nothing shocked a true expect like learning a newbie to their trade just broke one of the rules. She'd known about that for months now and still couldn't entirely get over it.

"We could beat him," Hana declared firmly. "Caught in between the Thousand Gaaras, our own couple Thousand Narutos, Jiraiya and Tsunade, we could pin and beat Orochimaru."

"Yeah, but Konoha would be wrecked in the three-way summon battle," Anko corrected bitterly.

"Might be good to do it for practice a few times, however," Tsunade gloated. "I need to learn more of my former teammate's newest tricks, and I won't do that well enough by standing off at a safe distance with binoculars. A few resets where I fight him, learning to predict his moves while he won't recall mine, are one good way of starting his eventual takedown."

Of course, she wasn't influenced at all over how Naruto rewarded her for things like this. No, not at all!

She licked her lips in anticipation of such rewards to come, however.

----

Sakura and a Naruto were both kneeling over Sasuke's feverish and shaking body in a shallow cave made by tree roots when it happened.

"Na..." Sakura cleared her throat painfully. "Naruto? Do you think, maybe after we get out of here, you could take me out?"

He'd been a complete gentleman with Hinata, after all. That lunch date they'd been on together had been very cute.

Surely it couldn't be too bad?

He'd learned by hard experience that most forms of gentle turn downs only made her try this harder, so he repeated. "Sakura, I asked you out once a day, on average, for six years. That's two thousand, one hundred and ninety requests for a date, and each time you turned me down was worse than the last. Sorry, but I'm not interested."

"Oh."

Just as the pink-haired genin began having her personality crisis, Tsunade, the Legendary Medic, and the kunoichi's personal heroine of the sannin came charging out of the brush, Anko, the lead examiner for this test, and several other kunoichi right behind her.

Instant hope bloomed in the young girl's breast. "Oh! You're going to help Sasuke?! Oh! Thank you!"

"Sorry, kid," Tsunade told her shortly, cutting the pinkette off before she could really start gushing. "That seal is deadly. We're only here to study it so we can develop a cure for others later. The Uchiha isn't going to survive this, but we can do research to save others later."

As Shizune started to slip into her supporting role, helping out her legendary teacher, she still provided brightly, "Well, at least Naruto was able to tell us several of the more important details, like that the ink is all poison based!"

Orochimaru was a snake freak, and snake's inject their poison by biting, so he'd willingly chosen to bite people to provide those cursed marks.

"Yeah, but the seals have already compressed," Anko rubbed her own throat where her mark lay idle. "It's going to be a bugger to decode them all, even with all of the information he already gave us."

Sakura just shrank into the background, feeling miserable and sorry for herself.

----

"Sorry, kid," Tsunade told her shortly, cutting the pinkette off before she could really start gushing. "That seal is deadly. We don't know half of what we need to cure it successfully yet."

----

"That might just be possible, kid. But don't get your hopes up," Tsunade told her shortly, cutting the pinkette off before she could really start gushing. "This is one of the most complex, chakra-invasive techniques yet devised by a very cunning mind, and a legendary genius. It's taken more work than you know to be able to do this."

"And you'd be surprised at how much of the foundation work was done by Naruto, your teammate," Shizune added on her own.

----

"Well, that's it. A successful test," Tsunade gave off a sigh of relief as she rose up, stretching the kinks out of her back and arms. Below her, the mark had faded off of Sasuke's shoulder and his fever and trembling had subsided. "He's going to live. We should be able to remove the marks now at any stage of completion."

"The amazing thing was Naruto almost had it right all along," Shizune agreed. "He was right in that the key was in dissolving those poison-based inks. He just didn't have the experience to be able to do that despite all of the many self perpetuating hooks they had into the body's chakra system."

Anko had already stripped to the waist and turned around, facing her own cursed mark to the Slug Sannin for removal. She tried hard to conceal how desperate she was to have it gone, and didn't succeed very well.

Seeing Naruto looking on like nothing was happening as the bare-chested women was getting treatment, Sakura darted forward and covered his eyes with her hands. "Naruto! You shouldn't look when a lady isn't decent!"

The pinkette then stared in disbelief as the crowd of jonin and other very senior ranking kunoichi all broke out laughing, as if she'd told a joke!

And Naruto! How DARE he laugh at her so?!!

----

"I'm going to have to learn to do that myself one of these days," Anko told her husband with gratitude as he removed her cursed seal just after waking her up, following yet another reset.

The boy answered her with a glad shrug. "Since one of the foundations of Clan Kitsune is crosstraining, I figured you'd want to eventually."

"I know all of the younger girls are learning it," Anko returned, putting back on her top - or actually, the new one he'd brought, rather than the see-through mesh one she'd used to tease Konoha for years with something almost but not quite indecent.

Kid was a fantastic tailor, and she had no reason to tease anymore. She'd bagged the guy those in the know agreed was the best male ever to grace Konoha with his presence - and they meant that quite literally!

"Hardly surprising," Naruto conceded. "Most of them grew up idolizing her. I'd take any change I had to learn whatever the Fourth Hokage wanted to teach me if he suddenly showed up in my life."

He meant that as rhetorical, but Anko caught his arm and spent a moment seriously considering it. She looked him dead in the eye and asked, "Why wouldn't he?"

Naruto laughed, scratching the back of his head with his free arm. "Because he's dead?"

"Yeah," she returned, nodding sagely. "And so are the First and Second ones, too. But that doesn't stop Roachy-chan from bringing them back to fight the Third."

That stopped the blond boy, and he had to consider that some more, but his most intense wife was already pressing home on her newfound point. "Okay, that technique he uses puts them under his absolute control, but since when have you EVER copied a technique and stuck within the absolute limitations?"

Naruto's jaw dropped open. Then slowly, as it closed, his eyes began to gleam.

Anko began nuzzling his cheek, asking, "Do I get a reward for being a good girl, now?"

His responding grin was infectious.

----

Hinata sat up from the place when she'd been laying, covered in a vast network of seals boosting the medical jutsu just used on her, a glad smile spreading wide over her face as she looked first at Naruto, then the Slug Sannin, who returned her a very tired smile.

The lavender-haired girl's foxlike ears twitched in response to a noise too faint for most to hear, then the furry tail unfurled from out behind her, and the former Hyuga heiress' dainty whiskers twitched.

"CUTE!!" A half dozen of her fellow wives descended on her in a rush to hug the stuffings out of the newly accessorized damsel.

----

Kurenai had taken to covering for the girls, 'revealing' each reset to the other jonin that she'd created a study group for them to improve their social and ninja skills.

Of course, what they really did was have pajama parties at her house, with furry bits hanging out in brown, lavender, and blonde hair while Naruto did a complete set of new measurements over everyone so they could have new outfits suited to their temporary foxy bits.

Yes, temporary. The medical designed seal arrays and the bloodline transfer techniques were exhausting even for Tsunade. So until Naruto could do them all by himself they couldn't afford to do this for all of them every reset, and the jutsu-applied foxy bits, like all physical changes, vanished in between unlike his own self perpetuating chakra inspired ones.

Still, they were all so excited to have them, they did this fairly often. And Naruto was learning VERY quickly under Tsunade's inspired tutelage, how to be a much better medic than he'd been - with an emphasis on bloodline transfer techniques for now, because very soon they'd be wanted to share out those wonderful Hyuga eyes as well as his foxy bits, and Tsunade herself just couldn't take the strain of so many massive, chakra-intensive rituals so close together.

So it was have Naruto do it, or no one.

Still, the girls were all picking it up just as fast. Naruto had loved Tsunade out of her hemophobia, curing the root of that ill, where she'd lost the last man she'd ever loved to gory injuries, by granting her enough love so that the trauma of that far distant memory was no longer attached to so great a loss.

Or, to explain further, she'd linked the sight of blood to one of the greatest and most devastating losses in her life, and she'd been unable to move on for years, or even fully practice her medical abilities.

Time heals all wounds. Nobody, no matter how dedicated, can feel just as bad about a traumatic experience thirty years later as they did on the day of. It can still cripple them, but it no longer has the power it once did unless they choose to let it do so.

But you can't stay hung up on how miserable and unhappy you are if you are too busy having a wonderful time!

Naruto was an explosion of energy. He was unstoppable, and between the massive sensory overload of his S-rank massages (according to Anko), the food, the clothes, and all of the exciting things to do developing the new clan and sharing in the discoveries they'd made...

Tsunade wasn't so empty inside that the ghosts of her past had power over her as they once did. Those long gone shades and empty memories of a pain from long ago simply couldn't stand the light of entering Naruto's life.

And he loved her. Love was important to women in a big way. She could still futility try drawing on that empty reservoir of the long dead memory of a man who'd once loved her, or she could accept the flow from the one who did now.

It was so easy she didn't even have to consciously make the choice. The bad memories that had once been haunting her packed up and moved out, as there simply wasn't room for them in her life anymore.

So, no longer held back by that ball and chain of past trauma, she started to BE that Legendary Sannin and medic she'd once been, rather than the drunken gambler she'd become in the interval, and all of them were better for the change, as with that switch she became a more excellent teacher, and all of those girls began to pick up her skills.

Especially Shizune.

Kurenai mentioned that she found it very interesting that the new Kitsune clan appeared to be positioned to become the prominent illusion and medical experts of Konoha, along with alot of minor talents and skills, especially when that was the furthest thing from Naruto's original purpose of being cool fighters.

----

"What are you doing?"

Shizune stopped what she'd been doing. "Uh, learning how to deliver a calf? Hana wants us all to pick up studying veterinary science as soon as possible. She says that it's just as important to keep our clan protectors alive as it is to know medicine for ourselves."

"And how do I resemble a cow?"

"Uh, size mostly." The girl trembled.

"Actually, I more closely resemble a barn you might keep a cow in than a cow. And speaking about things inside, can you do something about your arm?"

Suddenly realizing what she'd been caught doing. Shizune pulled her well-greased arm out with a wet 'Slurck' and began stammering apologies. "Oh! I am so very sorry! You see, the book says that in order to deliver a breach birth on a large animal you've got to slide your arm into the birth canal, and..."

The Kyubi sighed, cutting her off. "Oh, forget it. Let's put it down to this: you're a vet, and I'm an animal, and chalk it up to one of those unpleasant medical experiences no one likes to talk about. At least you were the only one to see my humiliation."

"Well, from what they'd been telling me. They've all done this before using you as a model. I was just catching up." Shizune admitted shyly, with a blush, before realizing that might not be the most comforting thing to say.

"Oh, they have, have they?" The Kyubi asked with narrowed eyes, then sighed. "You've got the scent of my master all over you, so I cannot kill you, in spite of how much I'd like to. Tell me, what ELSE has he been up to?"

"Oh, a few things," Shizune stepped away from the cage, hurriedly wiping the grease off of her arm. "I'll go and get him so you can discuss it."

And with that, she darted away from the Kyubi enclosure - a very nice gilded cage set out on the garden lawn of the mansion in his mind.

----  
Author's Notes:

Anybody see that one coming?


	39. Chapter 39

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Thirty Nine

by Lionheart

----

'How ironic' Hana thought. 'But it was so much less fearsome to meet the Kyubi active and alive after having already been using her for a medical dummy. Kinda takes the fear out of it.'

It having been Naruto's mindscape, he'd been able to do things that couldn't ordinarily be done, and so they'd practiced veterinary medicine on sheep, goats, cows, horses, pigs, elephants, and she forgot what else (it was a VERY long list!) using the Kyubi as their practice dummy, always shrunk to the appropriate size by the boy whose mind it was.

One chance comment by a drunk Tsunade had let that out, "Hey! So we used you as an anatomy model for all of the cattle and half of the zoo animals in all of the elemental countries. So what?", and the Kyubi was going to go all demon fox on them until Naruto'd reminded her of her oath.

Then he'd offered to brush her coat out.

Hana had stood there amazed, along with the rest of the Kitsune Clan (and their den mother) as even the great and powerful Kyubi fell to Naruto's S ranked pampering skills.

They were more dangerous than ninja techniques, in their own way.

A few hundred shadow clones spread out along her length, several brushes, perfumes (it being in his mind, he had access to anything he'd ever mixed, as well as a whole flower garden representing what he'd learned helping out at Ino's shop), and "Massages: Fox Edition!" (which he'd apparently studied on himself) and the lady Kyubi had begun begging for more vet treatments.

Part of Hana was so proud of her husband it hurt. Other parts were ever so slightly scared that he had that much power over the women in his life!

But the chunin took a deep breath and calmed herself, reminding herself of an Inuzuka clan law, that "It was not power that made one dangerous, only intent. And, if you want to know what someone will do with more power, look and see what they do with the power they've already got."

Naruto was safe. He'd gotten mid-to-high chunin on so many skills that he was effectively a jonin without even considering his shadow clones. A couple thousand jonin was more ninja strength than all of the rest of Konoha had. If her husband wanted, he could destroy this town without needing the help of an invasion - and from many perspectives, they'd already given him cause.

What did he do with that massive power? He was trying to save them, and he devoted unreal amounts of time and attention to learning how to pamper the girls in his life.

What about that was bad?

Now, contrast that with someone like Sakura, whose only power was abusive language. What did she do with that? Did she even use it on enemy ninja? No, all of her power was directed to hurting her friends (minus the Uchiha).

The Uchiha himself was a messed up piece of work. He used his power for himself, always for his own interests and if anyone else wanted something from him they could go hang themselves from the nearest tree.

Kakashi was almost the same, although he did respond (slowly and with at best only minimal effort, but he did respond) to demands placed on him by his village, where Sasuke did so only because he was seeking more rank, and thus more opportunities for power for himself.

Despite how much those two were alike, there was a difference there. The jonin had some loyalty to his village, whereas Sasuke sought only power.

Close exposure to Naruto over she forgot how long had inevitably carried with it some exposure to the treasured Uchiha, and none of the girls were favorably impressed. Even Ino had overcome whatever affection she'd once had for the 'genius prodigy' on close exposure showing them all more about how the spoiled brat behaved.

You could learn an amazing amount about a person by watching how they reacted to slightly different stimuli. Naruto had done that to learn how to manipulate people into doing things for him, with the aim of training up to eventually save his village.

Ino had done the same, or tried to do the same, convincing Sasuke to grant his favors upon Sakura. As, having her own man, Ino had wanted for her old friend to get the one she'd been after for so many years.

That exposure had turned the daughter of flower shop owners utterly and completely against anything to do with Sasuke Uchiha. She'd learned all she could about his buttons and how to manipulate him, discovering the details of his personality to an encyclopedic degree while trying to turn him into the sort of person so many girls thought he was, even resorting to Naruto's adaptations to her clan's mind transfer techniques to get inside of his head to access the Uchiha's memories.

What Ino'd found there, and reported to the rest of the Kitsune clan, had finished convincing her and them that there was nothing good or admirable about the Uchiha; and confirmed everyone's worst fears about the boy that, having seen the inside of his head after getting the cursed mark, she knew the Uchiha WAS going to betray the village and go desert to join Orochimaru!

Sasuke had already made the decision, even the invasion didn't change his mind, and although he was going to play 'hard to get' to do what he could to increase whatever recruitment bonus the snake, or his cronies, offered, the Uchiha had already decided to go.

It was only a matter of time until he did so. Although, obviously, he hadn't yet within the scope of the resets, that was more because, for the moment, Sasuke was content to stay in Konoha for a few years to learn all he could from his home village before deserting it as a betrayer.

But they all knew that such decisions could be changed. And, if a convincing enough recruitment appeal arrived, the Uchiha would be gone in an instant.

Tsunade labeled him an official security risk and danger to Konoha.

----

Peace with the Kyubi was declared as the demon fox got appeased between the massages and other spa treatments, then moved over to enthusiastic acceptance of her situation by Naruto offering to let her occupy a Shadow Clone, using a variant of Ino's Mind/Body transfer technique to pull her consciousness in to the artificial body while it lasted.

Although, the vixen did prefer to occupy a female form, that was easily done by means of the Sexy technique. It was far from her original, invincible, indestructible real body, but that was fully locked up behind the seal, and this way at least she could get out to experience tastes and flavors and other sensations again.

Hinata, for her part, took an unreal delight in having her own furry bits to match Naruto-kun's. She'd always get them if she could have them, and it was only the second time after he'd learned to get that process right on his own without Tsunade's help that the Kyubi was awake and watching that whole proceeding.

"What are you doing?" the still very weakened demon vixen asked as the boy went about drawing those large and intense seal arrays for the bloodline transfer technique, with the rest of the clan looking on and watching, some to make sure he still did it right, and others to be learning for themselves.

"Just transferring my bloodline to Hinata-chan!" He replied with a wide grin.

The female version of Naruto currently occupied by the vixen blinked. "You mean my 'decorations'? You actually LIKE them?!?" her tone was somewhat disbelieving, but then she saw herself surrounded by nods from the people around her.

"They're dead useful." Anko shrugged, twirling a kunai around her fingertips.

"They're the cutest thing EVER!" Ino agreed, Shizune nodding along with her.

"I like them," Tenten added.

"I can focus more on offense if my body heals itself," Tsunade shrugged.

"It's more of everything my original clan has ever wanted," Hana agreed.

"They do make it a great deal easier to detect and defend against illusions, as it almost takes the bloodline itself to be able to add enough clues to fool the extra senses," Kurenai admitted.

"I wouldn't deprive Hinata of them, but I don't get my own set nearly often enough," Temari said from where she sat, hugging one leg to her chest.

They made her feel pretty, even when she had to disguise them.

Ayame didn't answer, but inwardly had to agree with Temari.

The Kyubi preened. "Well, you have good taste. But why are you doing it that way?"

Naruto stopped what he was doing, scribing medical seals on Hinata, to ask, "Is there another way?"

"Of course!" The fox sounded affronted that she'd have to state anything so obvious. "I GAVE you those decorations! It would be a simple enough matter to 'decorate' your mates, as well!"

"You mean, the actual ones that don't go away?" Hinata had teleported out of the medical seal array to be standing hopefully before the female Naruto clone the Kyubi was currently controlling, the shy girl's hands clasped in hope and pleading before her.

All of the others present had perked up in interest as well.

Slave that she was, the Kyubi had to admit that being pleaded with agreed with her. For that matter, she'd been treated with none of the cruelty she'd have given them, if their roles had been reversed.

Silly weak humans, but they were entertaining creatures.

Then she saw Naruto peering at her closely, as if reading her thoughts, and, knowing that to be his privilege as her master, gave up that line of thinking and resigned herself to an honest, unthreatening answer. "Yes. It's nothing more than a slight alteration to your chakra matrixes that the regeneration then makes current, no matter your physical state. You could have the bits I give you cut off, and they'd regrow instantly, while the portions separated from you would simply dissolve. That last I added so no one would think to make a coat out of your tails."

"The only one allowed to do anything with my tail is Naruto," Hinata insisted, firmly agreeing, and inadvertently causing several of the other girls to blush at the possibly unintended implications.

Although, for Hinata, they hadn't been unintended at all.

"A change like that, you'd even keep your memories automatically despite this silly time loop, without a need for your mate to go restoring your minds from backups every time." The fox in human girl form mused aloud. "That would mean you'd stop losing bits each reset, as he failed to copy everything up to the moment of your 'deaths'."

"DECORATE ME!!" Hinata shouted, causing several of those around her to blanch in alarm - or shock at her sudden assertiveness, they couldn't tell which.

"And me!" Ino added.

"And me!" Temari rose to her feet.

Ayame was suddenly standing with that small, impulsive group as well.

"What exactly..." Hana began, only to have the rest of her question 'does that involve' die on her lips as the Kyubi-in-human-form gave each of those girls a small nip on their shoulders.

The foxy modifications sprouted immediately, each of those girls obtaining a full set of foxy accessories in their own hair colors. Tsunade stopped a rush from occurring while she examined each of those already affected, and then pronounced, "It's the same as Naruto's. Nothing's different."

Then the legendary medic bared her own shoulder to the Kyubi.

The rest came following after.

Naruto came close to peer at the Kyubi's face. "Only an enemy would use an opportunity like that to hurt my precious people!"

But the Kyubi was calm, unruffled, and most importantly, undamaged by the boy's declaration, and calmly returned, "I have served you well, master."

The boy stood back, then smiled. "Oh! Well, in that case, what can you do about helping us share around Hinata-chan's eye bloodline?"

The Kyubi sweatdropped. "What did I say about making an ant into a queen? I can copy my own work, since you like it. But human skills and human blood..."

The Kyubi clone found herself in Tsunade's headlock, as the sannin sweetly whispered, "Come along dear. You and I are going to study some medicine!"

The Kyubi's ears drooped. "Do we have to? I didn't like what you did before."

The sannin was unmoved. "All of medicine except popping pills is disgusting. All of it. But you aren't going to be our training dummy this time, not unless you deserve it, that is. No, my new student, if you can transfer a bloodline around without all of the work I'd have to go through to do it, you are simply going to learn how to pass around MORE of them!"

And with that, the sannin dragged the demon fox away.

Naruto was immediately engulfed in furry cuddles by the girls left behind.

----

Ino faced Sakura across the floor of the chunin exam preliminaries with a sly yet confident smirk on her face.

Sakura tried to match her grin for grin. As she opened her mouth to declare their friendship null and void forever, though, Ino interrupted by forming a handseal. "Sakura, have you forgotten that this is a FIGHT? Naked in Public Technique!"

The pinkette discovered in horror that her clothes exploded apart into a cloud of loose threads that then dissolved in midair, leaving her utterly bare in the center of everyone's attention.

She fell screaming to her knees, legs locked tightly together as she covered herself with them and her arms.

For those outside of the illusion, which was everyone but Sakura herself, saw the girl clutch herself and fall, still fully clothed, to the ground. Most couldn't even figure out that she was trying to preserve her modesty from an illusion occurring in her mind, and were confused she'd curl up into a ball like that.

Inside the illusion, Ino walked up to her paralyzed with modesty friend, and said with a nasty smirk, "You aren't worthy of Sasuke. Shall I bend you over here before everyone and write 'Property of Naruto Uzumaki' on your butt?"

"No! Nonononono!" Sakura screamed, shaking her head frantically, puzzling everyone up in the stands, while the Hokage and others easily figured out she was caught in an illusion.

Inside the illusion, Ino shook her head, tsking. "Well, if it isn't going to be the marker, it's going to be the sword." She drew one of the blades hanging from her waist since the beginning of the forest test. "Goodbye, forehead girl."

Sakura screamed as the sword made an arc that connected with her neck, not even trying to evade it as her arms and legs were busy with concealing her parts, and the real person passed out, fainting as she died in the illusion.

The rest of the audience looked on, puzzled, as the girl simply screamed and fainted. But the judge looked her over for a moment, then declared Ino the winner.

Medics revived the girl moments later, only to have Sakura immediately clutch her parts to conceal them again upon waking, only to discover the feeling of cloth under her hands. She opened her eyes in amazement to find Ino standing there confidently before her, declaring, "Fights over. You lost."

Looking around, she could see that she was removed from the stage, and there was another fight being called. Somewhat shamefaced, but trying to conceal that behind anger, Sakura got up to declare, shouting, "That was a terrible thing to do, Ino!"

"No. It wasn't," Ino shook her head calmly, confidence unshaken. "All I did was spare you some bruises. You'd not have half your chances with Sasuke if I'd used a fire technique to burn you to submission instead. Burn scars are never something that heal quite right. Or would you rather I carve up your pretty face with Wind? Or smash it with Earth? You got off easy, Sakura."

Still trying to preserve some of her confidence and dignity in spite of her recent defeat, Sakura sniffed haughtily. "Well, you won't defeat me with that illusion the next time!"

"Oh, I won't, will I?" Ino returned confidently, before the blonde girl stood up from where she'd been leaning against a wall and uncrossed her arms. As she departed, she said, "Well, that's too bad, because there are TWO 'Naked in Public' techniques. One is an illusion, and one isn't. The best illusions always do something that COULD be real, and Naruto's developed positively hundreds of ninja techniques for sewing and the like. So it's easy as pie to make your clothes disintegrate for real - and it's dead useful for depriving an enemy of their tools and hidden weapons, too! So if an illusion won't work, count on the real thing next time. See ya!"

Sakura was left behind, a flaming blush alight on her features, concluding in concert with Inner Sakura that she'd have the exact same response the next time she ever faced that technique, just in case it was real.

And, judging from the hungry looks ill-concealed on the boys around them who'd been eavesdropping in on this conversation, they'd be only too happy to see her provoke Ino into having the real thing happen.

The Hokage even had a trail of blood out of his nose.

Sakura retreated from the battlefield to go deal with her blush and recover from her embarrassment in private, secretly glad that Ino HADN'T bent her over in front of everyone and put 'Property of Naruto Uzumaki' on her butt!

Ino, on the other hand, was back to standing beside that wonderful boy up on the balcony, privately cheering that she HAD such a mark on her own bottom under her panties, and sad for Sakura that she didn't.

Anko insisted, and the pinkette didn't know what she was missing!

Actually, to her own mind at least, Ino had COMPLIMENTED Sakura during that technique! Saying 'she wasn't worthy of Sasuke' to Ino's mind, meant her friend was TOO GOOD for that selfish, shallow betrayer! Offering to let her in to Naruto's little club had been the most generous, kind and loving thing she could do for to her oldest friend! And, if she'd accepted, she'd have instantly hauled her off to go get included into the Kitsune Clan!

The massages alone could've convinced her to love it.

The bloodline wouldn't have hurt, either. Not with those abilities!

But such was life. And she had to choose her own path, it wouldn't be fair to force Sakura onto the one Ino preferred.

The two girls, of completely opposite opinions, rejoiced in their own choices as they made their ways down their own prospective paths.

----

"Naked in Public technique!" Naruto called out as the trio from Sound came at their camp they'd made after the Orochimaru attack during the forest part of the exam, the next reset.

All of the clothes vanished from the attacking trio, dropping assortments of weapons they'd carried haphazardly onto the ground.

"wha?" called out the formerly masked guy with the speaker, just before a clone hit him and the guy with pipes down his arms with an Inner Decapitation technique, burying them up to their necks in the ground. Another clone put them under Temporary Paralysis, just to be certain.

Anko walked out of the forest, cracking her knuckles. "Hi there!' She gloated to the trapped duo. "You two are going to help us practice a technique of my old master - one requiring the sacrifice of a human life to raise another one from the dead!"

The two Sound genin stared at her in horror.

Kin, the girl on the Sound team, had covered herself on the first attack and now tried to slip away. But her attempt to go off streaking into the forest got stopped by Hinata, who'd left a Shadow Clone with her own team to come and assist on this task of Naruto's.

The kunoichi from Sound found herself not only naked, but paralyzed and staring at three glowing hands as a trio of Hinata's clones surrounded her within arm's reach. At that range, there was no escaping the Gentle Fist user.

"Now lie down," the Hyuga heiress ordered softly, but with authority.

The naked kunoichi did so, resigning herself to death. "So, how are you going to kill me?"

Hinata smiled. "Oh, we don't plan to kill you. Naruto-kun is only going to give you a massage. You'll like it so much, you'll tell us everything we want to know. And, if you are very, Very good, you might be able to convince us to recruit you as a new member of our clan."

The blond boy left the other genin and approached her, flexing his fingers.

Kin snorted, "I won't fall for such a stupid jutsu."

Anko openly laughed. "Kid! If, in TEN MINUTES or less, you aren't shrieking out marriage proposals and promising to love this guy forever, you can go free! No questions asked! We'll even loan you clothes and let you get your weapons back!"

Kin looked up at the Hyuga heiress for confirmation, and the white-eyed girl agreed, nodding while wearing her own secretive smile.

The Sound girl settled in to receive the interrogation technique, secretly worried now that they all seemed so confident about it.

Scented combs started to brush through her hair a moment later, and she had to admit that, as far as interrogation techniques go, this one was fairly nice. At least there was no probability of scarring. Ten minutes of this shouldn't be too bad. She could easily endure it if this was all they had.

The kid's warm and flexible hands started to work on her a heartbeat later.

Sasuke was still asleep, having been cured by Naruto of that awful cursed mark. So it was without other concerns as Sakura slowly became more and more absorbed, focusing in on how Naruto destroyed the enemy kunoichi's resistance and got her squirming, then writhing, then howling aloud with pleasure as his apparently magic fingers went work on the muscles of her body, rubbing her scalp and so on.

In two minutes, the Sound ninja had forgotten all about resisting the massage - in four, she was telling them everything they wanted to know. By the time six rolled around, she'd forgotten about everything but making them happy with her so this could go on. Kin's goals had changed from escaping after enduring the technique, to making this go on as long as possible.

The marriage proposals and promising to do anything for them had come at seven and a half minutes. Begging and pleading for them to let her suck on Naruto's toes, bear his children, clean his home, carry out the clan's garbage and die gloriously fighting to protect them from their enemies came at eight.

By ten she had passed out in the midst of promising, for the fourth time, to love them forever if only they would graciously allow her to be their loyal pet in exchange for just two more minutes of massage.

She'd even been volunteering to wear a collar and everything.

Her two teammates were terrified at the effectiveness of this interrogation, as they'd gotten Kin to be volunteering the most revealing information she knew about Orochimaru's plans, doing so at maximum volume, and at the greatest rate the kunoichi could sustain in between her gasps and gulping for breath.

Sakura's panties were so wet they soaked clear through her shorts and lines of wetness began to trail down each leg. Her blush was furious, but she was so focused on watching Naruto she almost didn't even notice her own state.

Kin recovered from her momentary faint and began pathetically groveling, pleading for more of the same, hugging Naruto's feet where he stood by her and promising him her undying loyalty forever if only he would deign to accept her service... and perhaps cough up another moment of massage or two.

'Pop', Anko waltzed over, pulling the cap off her marker, and bending low to scribe 'Property of Naruto Uzumaki' on the girl's posterior, standing up to gloat, "Okay, kid. You pass! You get to be a member of the clan! Provisional, of course! Full membership pending a review on how you treat your new temp status." In other words, they'd let Naruto copy her memories out and 'wake' her up, then watch how she dealt with their trust over a few resets.

Kin, the former Sound kunoichi, wept in pathetic gratitude, still holding Naruto's legs in a hug to her bare chest.

She declared that name on her rump to be the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for her, and thanked them profusely for it, crying tears of joy all the while.

The Sound ninja would not disappoint them, proving to be as dedicated and loyal as any other member of the clan. And, despite her lowly status among the invasion forces, proving to be so useful a source of information on their plans that soon Kurenai was heard to complain that Kabuto wasn't a girl.

Sakura's inner thoughts were on the subject of wishing she were bold enough to ask for the same. But when Anko came over to her, bent over obviously to stare at the girl's moistened crotch, and asked, "Wow! Is there anything you'd like to share with us, Sakura-chan? Should I get my marker?" the pink haired ninja shook her head furiously and ran off into the forest to be alone.

Hinata sighed, sadly thinking that girl was so blind!

----  
Author's Notes:

Not much to say but 'thank you'.


	40. Chapter 40

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty

by Lionheart

----

All of those girls involved with Naruto had begun to learn his tricks for manipulating those around them into doing what they wanted. So, thus it was, that Lee chose to issue his challenge to Sasuke out in front of the testing building, before the entire audience of chunin hopefuls rather than inside where they had privacy.

"Yes!" Sasuke agreed, in a tone of voice that was entirely unlike him, as he tore off his shirt to reveal the pale white, unmuscled chest beneath. "Let us determine now who is the TRUE Lord of the Dance!!"

"Dance?" Lee repeated dumbly, disbelieving of his ears.

"And Welcome, Ladies and Germs," Naruto appeared behind them to announce through a microphone in a 'cheesy Disc Jockey' tone of voice. "To the First Annual Ninja Dance-Off Competition, which is about to begin!!"

"Yah!" A roar of approval came from an unseen audience, just as hundreds of dance lights illuminated Sasuke, who began to bump and grind with his fish-white belly showing to all.

A band, consisting of multiple copies of Kurenai and Anko, began to play, and Sasuke formed a handseal, disappearing in a brief cloud of white smoke to reappear under a partial transformation, looking like a humanoid duck.

"Shake your tailfeathers!!" the half-boy, half-duck Uchiha called out as the band began to play "Disco Duck!"

Genin watched in horror and Lee fled the scene as the Uchiha performed, word for word, that classic song, trying (and failing) to look impressive as he did disco before the entire audience of ninja.

Quacking with his bright orange beak was supposed to help.

Sakura hid her face in her hands, peeking out only now and then to make sure that it was as bad as she'd thought it could be.

It was every bit so bad.

Sasuke concluded his song to the accompaniment of chirping crickets, as the crowd was unable to believe that he'd just humiliated himself so badly.

"Stand aside, my friend," Naruto entered the stage area, shoving the half duck Sasuke back out of the limelight, "And let me show you how to do it!"

With a puff of smoke, over a dozen giant toads had appeared and the band struck up a different tune.

A much more powerful and striking tune.

"Macho! Macho Frog!" the two dozen toads sang, dancing to the beat as a chorus line.

Naruto was before them, forming a fist to sing, "I want to be a macho frog!"

"Macho! Macho Frog!" the two dozen toads repeated their chorus line, shaking the town block with the force of their dancing.

Jaws dropped open over the entire audience line. Those that hadn't before largely did so now.

As Naruto finished up, instead of crickets chirping (those real ones on scene had mostly been eaten by smaller frogs providing vocal backup) there came many cries and shouts of appreciation from certain kunoichi in the numbers.

Bowing twice to his audience, Naruto withdrew. Those who thought things were over, however, were in for quite a large disappointment as, to the apparent shock of her teammates, Kin of the Sound team shoved herself forward with a proud smirk in place on her lips.

Stepping out, she declared, "Do ANY of you think you can compete with a SOUND ninja on a song and dance contest? Puhleeze?"

She formed a handseal and a half dozen clones of her appeared, all of them wearing different combat outfits.

They immediately sang "Be a Ninja!" to the tune of "In the Navy."

Open jaws from every corner would've been catching flies if the frogs hadn't already gotten them. Although, most of those genin began to glance around surreptitiously. Seeing the jonin and other instructor-types that had begun to appear, they mostly decided that this was a VERY unusual chunin test, and that they would be graded on their performance here, instead of in there.

So trios of genin began to link up and decide, on almost no notice, what to do as their song and dance numbers so they could pass the test.

"Now remember the rules, Ladies and Germs," Naruto appeared again, beside Ibiki and Kakashi, two jonin who were just utterly shocked to find themselves sitting at a judges desk with a gong hanging behind them. "The judges can choose to remove any number for being too lame, uncoordinated or just plain silly! So stomp you feet, clap your hands, c'mon everybody do the Hamster Dance!"

And, thinking this was somehow part of their grade on the chunin test, they did. The entire group of genin did, scrambling to find out who to copy as they began to move in tune while the band began to play.

Kakashi and Ibiki began to blink at each other behind the judges stand, before wordlessly turning back to observe the floundering genin trying to dance.

Several senior chunin, already recruited as test proctors, finding themselves with judges tags on and standing out in the midst of a sudden crowd of dancing genin, began to look around themselves in confusion, first to see if ANYONE of actual rank was serious about this. Then, on spotting both Kakashi and Ibiki sitting calmly (or stunned, but on such seasoned ninja that state was never obvious) behind the judges stand with Tsunade standing behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders and grinning, the chunin test proctors assumed this had been a change of plans and began to look around themselves on the dancing genin, drawing on whatever meager exposure to dancing they had to start disqualifying people.

Mostly, they did it on the basis of 'that looks stupid', which was unfortunate, as this was the Hamster Dance, and the only appropriate ways to dance to it were stupid and silly looking; although, there was one surprising team from Grass who made it look amazingly graceful.

And, no, Naruto's team had nothing to do with that. It was just a surprise they had that talent, that's all.

Luckily, the proctors started out by eliminating those who were the most silly and stupid looking, which was mostly those ninjas who were completely out of their depths and hadn't bothered to copy anyone successfully. So it was okay in the end.

"Our next number," Naruto called out once that song was over, "Is the lovely and gracious Temari from Sand, who will be tap-dancing to Singing In The Rain - and may I take this opportunity to remind everyone of the one-jutsu limit on their performance numbers!"

Temari danced out in tophat and coat, long, fishnet clad legs and bearing a cane. Her illusion of storm clouds over only the stage dropping rain all around her was drawing wide comments from all and sundry, while Kankuro's jaw opened wider and wider in amazement as his sister performed her dance number and sang with a very warm and high quality voice.

Gaara was too busy licking an ice cream cone from a vendor that had begun to circulate to comment.

Actually, these being ninja, and figuring out (or so they thought) that this was a test of their adaptability, they began to seek out those who had prepared plans to copy those people, or to make their own adaptations of numbers already performed.

Tenten had her dance plans lifted out of her back pocket, and a trio from Rain began to sing about having to fight for their right to party, and doing a credible job of it for absolute newbies.

More plans began to get stolen and passed around, as genin came to believe that this was the true first test, and they still had to pass it in spite of being totally unprepared.

Which was, really, the point of the chunin test.

Naruto found himself, to his own astonishment, the recipient of several bribes as genin teams tried to coordinate their acts and get 'the easy numbers' from this apparent test proctor (and he WAS the DJ, so he HAD to be a jonin or chunin in disguise, right?). And, being who he was, he began to roll with this and pass out musical numbers to those who made requests for such assignments - so long as they were suitably sneaky about asking.

This WAS a ninja test, after all! Or, at least, it seemed to be becoming one.

He took pity on one such group and let them, including Kiba, sing 'Summer Loving' from Grease, which was, for most of the group, a simple matter of chanting 'tell me more, tell me more', and so as easy a number as he could give.

But he wasn't about to make it TOO easy on them, and the guy with pipes down his arms from Sound got himself stuck singing about freakazoid robots that were about to break out.

Kurenai and Anko on the band also began to get approached, both for offers, and by genin hoping to acquire music by theft or copying so they'd at least know what their options were.

It began to be an insane display of ninja skills as people from all across the elemental countries began to employ their talents and abilities in procuring the mission critical information of who had what dance, how they were going to do it, and what exactly that dancing involved.

Anko almost began to cry, as it made her so happy to see so many ninja using their abilities to recover from an almost untenable position. Yes! If this were a true test most of them, having no IDEA how to sing or dance, would have been completely unprepared to pass it! But they were responding in true ninja fashion and coming up with such imaginative ways of overcoming their positions! Forming eyeballs of sand to watch over her shoulder and follow along the sheet music as she played number after number, using that and experience at deciphering codes to learn to read music so he would be less unprepared when his turn came around! Stealing copies of music! Using a 'knife in your back' approach to blackmail genin who'd already passed to divulge the critical data on how and what to do!

They were facing this test as the ninja they were! And it made her so proud she had to cry.

Kankuro got out there with his puppet, the puppet wearing a hastily donned dress she had no IDEA where he'd found it, and the pair of them stumbled around to a credible waltz! He'd never danced before! She KNEW it! But out there he was, looking to be one of the most prepared of their impromptu contestants!

They were NINJA! They were SUPPOSED to be adaptable! Coming up with plans on the fly to counter unpredictable events was PART OF the job description! And there they were out there DOING IT!!!

It made her so proud.

The thing was, Ibiki clued in and began to see it from that light himself and settled in to judge things more seriously. He was an expert on stress and the kind of things it did to people's minds. As head of Torture and Interrogation he'd been exploiting that for years.

And he'd begun to perceive that out there on that dance floor were more stressed and frantic genin than even his plans for this test would have or could have achieved. Public humiliation was an ever worse form of torture than he'd originally planned for this, and because of that, this dance contest was an even better way of eliminating those with weak nerves than his own planned event was for purposes of determining who had the nerves to make it as a chunin, and so deserved promotion.

So he simply began to go along with the flow, and gonged out Neji for having completely failed to get into the spirit of dancing the funky chicken.

What made it even odder was, to avoid embarrassment, the rest of the authorities who actually had authority to cancel this, didn't, and the chunin proctors began to do a much more credible job of eliminating bad numbers before long.

So, by default, it became the first test of the chunin exam.

Although, nobody had the nerve to gong out Gaara for doing the tango with his own sand clone, no matter how creepy it was.

That team from Grass passed without any problems.

Sakura got gonged out before singing a note, and Anko was seen standing by the judges desk looking too innocent for it not to be faked.

Hinata then made a triumphal entry onto the stage floor, crossing over it to grab Naruto and drag him back onto it with her, where she then began to sing quite emotionally, getting into the role of "You're the One That I Want!" also from Grease.

Ino, in the background, was mouthing along to the words "I need a man, and my heart is set on you!"

Inspired by this dual performance (as Naruto had had his own lines to sing to go along with that song), Tenten made her own performance right after with a song entitled "Hopelessly Devoted To You" from the same play, and that ended on such a note many of the kunoichi in the audience who were not frantic over their own numbers were in tears, and Naruto had to go over to cuddle her as Tenten hadn't survived that act without sprouting some of those herself.

Shino made a surprisingly good showing for himself singing "Wooden Heart," which no one would've expected from him, but was done very well. Having bugs inhabit his body had apparently granted him perfect pitch.

Inspired by Hinata having dragged out a partner who'd already sung his number, most of the remaining genin began to follow that path in order to have someone to lean on to hopefully prop up their own flagging skills, and things really began to get insane with duets, choruses, and crazy numbers in odd combinations, bringing together the wildest assortments of people.

Shino found himself in the lead female role, singing opposite Ino, who'd somehow gotten stuck as the male lead, singing the title song from "Phantom of the Opera" arranged by a full dozen nameless Konoha genin so they could do the chorus lines, repeating "beware the phantom of the opera," which was so silly they got gonged out.

Choji did his "become a big ball" technique and did "I'm a little teapot" to rounds of raucous laughter, only to be followed by a Weird Al polka from an amazing conglomeration of genin from different villages, including many past performers.

And then things just got odd.

Lee, unfortunately, chose to dance the hula, so there was nothing for it but for him to be gonged out.

----

"Naruto-chan? Can we talk for a bit?"

Not having had any of the marital difficulties or problems that could make a guy openly cringe at such a statement, Naruto ran happily off to see what it was his wife wanted.

"It's nothing bad," Shizune tried to reassure him, despite such reassurances not being necessary. "I was just doing Tsunade's monthly exam, not that we need to do them, or anything, but it would be bad to get out of the habit of doing them entirely, and I discovered something."

Naruto looked simultaneously terrified and excited. "Am I going to be a daddy?"

Shizune laughed. It was a musical sound. "Not while these resets are going on, at any rate. You need nine months, not one, and that would normally be impossible, given Tsunade's age - which brings up the real point of what I'd wanted to discuss with you. You do know that Tsunade used an illusion to look young, don't you?"

Guilelessly, Naruto shook his head.

Shizune giggled again. "Well, at any rate, she did." Suddenly she felt guilty for exposing to their mutual husband that her teacher was not as young as she appeared, and so resolved not to fracture his innocence on that subject any further, or any more than she had to, at any rate.

A woman's age was a precious secret, in most cases. Well, in any of the cases where it could embarrass or disadvantage her; and Shizune would HATE to be the one to do anything that might hurt Naruto's feelings for her long time instructor and associate.

"Well," Shizune continued, wondering how to cut this story down to its very most essential basics, so she didn't have to reveal any information that did not have to be revealed. "Tsunade was a bit older than she looked," the girl apprentice bit her lip a bit before admitting to this next part, "Old enough to not be able to bear babies. She just used an illusion to look younger, and that's the most amazing thing," the apprentice hurried on, hoping he'd not ask about the parts she was essentially skipping. "Because she doesn't need an illusion anymore. She has to drop it for her exams, and she looked exactly the same without it as with it on. Somehow something made her younger, and we suspect it has something to do with the Kyubi's decorating."

"So... Fluffy made Tsunade younger?" Naruto puzzled out what was wrong with this. "What's bad about that?"

"Fluffy?" Shizune allowed her thoughts to be derailed by that odd nickname.

Naruto shrugged, seeing her confusion. "Well, you can't call someone 'the' this or 'the' that all of the time. It gets boring. That's fine for titles but not for names. So, I thought, since she was furry..."

Shizune boggled at his casualness in naming the Kyubi like it was a pet.

"Oh, but she is," the boy told her, smiling. "My pet, that is." He was an expert at reading people by now, so could tell what Shizune was thinking. "After all, she IS an animal, and I AM her owner, so what else would she be?"

Shizune's mind sputtered to a complete halt on that thought, before she defaulted back to her own explanation as something she could understand. "My teacher has a regeneration technique that has saved her life several times, and can regrow just about any extent of damage. The trouble is, she gets older each time she uses it. But somehow, the regeneration the Kyubi granted through her 'decorations' does the exact opposite thing, making her younger instead of older!"

"Not quite," the fox herself interrupted where she'd been lounging on a sofa, napping in the sun. "It merely works to restore one to an ideal state, viewing the deterioration of what you humans call 'age' as simply another form of damage. The young ones who have not yet earned their maturity are working toward it no faster."

"Oh," the sannin's apprentice mumbled.

The vixen grinned. "But, once they reach it, they will stay there more or less forever."

"Hey Shizune!" Naruto blurted, interrupting her attempt to reboot her own mind. "Ino discovered a use for the snake's Body Flexibility technique on her medical rounds the other day!"

"Oh?" the apprentice seized this thought to ground herself on. Her teacher had carefully identified each and every one of the major and minor medical cases in Konoha over the entire period of the exam, well, all of the recurring ones anyway, her list didn't account for random damage received while trying out new reset patterns.

Anyway, this list consisted of the opportunities she had to teach her trade to her young students outside of the laboratory environment, and she had a habit of sending off the prospective medical ninja of Clan Kitsune (which was, by now, all of them) to handle case loads on their own once they'd reached a certain point. It was something of a right of passage, to be able to take on a serious case load and do a good job on whatever medical mission she sent you out on.

But Tsunade was brutal in what she considered to be an effective medical ninja, and those case loads were awful, including several that had no known solution yet.

And yet, by Tsunade's standards, you weren't a medic until you could cure a case that had never been cured before.

Naruto and Shizune, so far, had been the only ones to pass this test. Naruto had completely regenerated Lee's chakra coils, then used a time dilation illusion for a good minute and a half to teach him how to use chakra better than most Konoha chunin.

Shizune had made her breakthrough curing Hayate's cough. The proctor for the third stage of the test was a fantastic swordsman who was currently in ill health, too sick to fight at anywhere near full efficiency, and it had been chronic, not getting better in spite of years of light duty.

Shizune had found a way and broken the illness.

Of course, now that those two cases had been cured, and those results and methods taught to the rest of the group, they no longer qualified as good test subjects. They'd already been cured, so curing those two didn't count for achieving your medical grade by Tsunade's standards.

"Yeah, Ino passed!" Naruto blurted.

"She used Orochimaru's technique for stretching his limbs all over the place to pass her medical rounds?" Shizune connected some dots in confusion.

"Yeah!" Naruto repeated, hopping up and cheering, then turning his shining eyes on his fellow medic. "You know that childbirth case? The one with the breach and complications?"

"Yes." Shizune nodded. She knew the one. The mother had already been in labor for days before the reset started, so was already so very weak most of the surgical methods were a guarantee of her death. In fact, while they had sometimes saved the daughter she'd been trying to deliver, they had not once yet saved the mother - not even Tsunade.

Well, a good part of the reason for that was that she and Shizune arrived far too late to do much good for her. That two day walk was a killer, in this case quite literally. Although, it was a tricky enough delivery not even they could be assured of saving the mother's life even if they had come on time.

"So what did she do?"

"Oh! It was really COOL!" the boy announced. "She just went in there, used her clan techniques to take over the body of the mother, drew on her own chakra (which transferred with her mind) to use that Body Flexibility thing, only instead of stretching any of her limbs she used it on the lady's pelvis, popped the kid out in one push, no problem! Didn't even matter that the baby was not oriented properly!"

Shizune blinked in shock. That WAS original! Usually they didn't bother much with the snake's technique, as it required some chakra surgery to disconnect tissue from bone before you cold use the really impressive stretches, and the little ones made too little difference to bother with.

But this..?

Used in battle? No, not worth the bother without the prep surgery, which made too large a disfigurement to want to bother with, and now the regen properties of their bloodline would automatically 'correct' out of existence anyway.

Used as a childbirthing technique?

"That's ingenious!" Shizune exclaimed, all happy and excited.

Naruto nodded. "The others have been trying it out on the other deliveries in town. They say that it's easy and painless, not like a usual delivery at all. One of them walks in, uses the two techniques, the baby is delivered and they walk back out less than a minute later. Tsunade not only says she passed, but that this combo is probably going to go worldwide in a year or so. Every noblewoman is going to demand it, for one thing."

The dark haired woman pursed her lips. "I think my beloved teacher may be too fast to celebrate the 'end of labor pains' just yet. Didn't you say this takes the Yamanaka clan techniques to do?"

Sobering as he saw her point, Naruto nodded.

The young lady was serious herself. "Well, I don't know of any medics among the Yamanaka clan, so that leaves us. There aren't many people in this world who had a husband that copied one of Orochimaru's signature techniques using a stolen Sharingan, then taught that to his wives, after all. So the only medics on this planet who are able to pull this off would be us." She sighed and sat down in her chair, suddenly looking tired.

Looking back up to her husband, she told him with a tired grin, "Do you know what that is going to do to us? Once this secret gets out after the resets are over, there isn't going to be a woman in the elemental countries who'll want to go through birth without us! Every lord is going to be leaning on us to provide 'labor assistance' to his daughter or wife or cousin or whatever, and those are just the nobles! They've got power to press the issue, but no couple out there is going to want to leave us alone!" She shook her head and sighed, holding out her arms to Naruto so he'd hug her, which he did.

She finished out mumbling softly into his shoulder. "You don't know what it's like, Naruto, to be 'on call' where ever you go. Whatever you do, people are always coming up to you, asking for your help on this or that problem. They tell the most heart-wrenching stories, some of which are lies, but most aren't, and it's hard to tell you which is worse!"

She sniffled into his shoulder. "It breaks your heart to have to turn them down, but nobody can be enough places at once to handle all of the load of injuries out there! And now there won't be a pregnant woman in a thousand miles who won't want us to be there to take care of her delivery! Just you watch, we'll have the whole gamut, from humble peasants who've walked the whole thousand miles on foot so we'd save them to the highest noble lords leaning hard on the Hokage to rent us out to his family!"

Clutching his lapels, she sobbed, "Nobles view anyone less than themselves as garbage to be used as they see fit, so if they can rent us out for 'birthing services' you can guess what a short step that would be in their minds to our being whores the men can use even while our minds help out their women!"

There was enough bitterness there for Naruto to guess that some measure of personal experience might be involved, almost certainly a close call as he knew she still had her virtue intact each reset.

But Shizune was continuing. "There will be girls who came to beg on their own behalf, fathers asking for their daughters, husbands to plead for their poor wives with delicate constitutions, scared of dying having the son they've always wanted, old crones glaring at us for not having saved their daughters, rich merchants willing to drown us in cash to make sure that their heir gets delivered alive, and what's worse, there will be lords and ladies who are willing to go to WAR over not having to pop out their own kids the uncomfortable way! They've already FOUGHT wars over control of luxuries less important to them than this! But the case load is too big, NO ONE could handle it all!"

Naruto interrupted her wails with a chuckle. Bending back so he could look her in the face, the boy smiled. "But I can."

Shizune blinked, suddenly thinking of his thousands of shadow clones and limitless chakra. Maybe he really could? But then she smirked, and cocked her eyebrows upwards. "Oh? And does my manly husband wish to be the mother of all of the children born in the elemental countries?"

Naruto suddenly turned green, finally thinking that through.

"That's what I thought," Shizune chuckled into his chest. "Now hold me. I need to have a good cry here."

"Yeah," Naruto mumbled, holding her to his chest. What a dilemma! They had one of the most revolutionary of healing techniques known to ninja in their clan now, and they either had to keep it a secret... or get mobbed by too many people demanding they use it to benefit them!

He'd never suffered any shortage of himself in the supply and demand area before, but unless he wanted to experience, oh, about a million childbirths himself (even if it was the easy way), then...

He sighed, looking down to where he was stroking Shizune's hair, and decided that they'd probably have to limit its use to life threatening cases, and then only to Konoha, and even that would probably wind up being a solid case load. But even so, they ran a rather substantial risk of discovery, so eventually the method would become known, and once it was out there that it existed...

He sighed, shaking his head even as he stroked Shizune's. While she was busy moistening his shirt, he was thinking it through, catching up to what made the experienced medic cry.

If this became a luxury that people could go to for their convenience, then no one with any money would want to go through the old way again. People who didn't want any more children would even be changing their minds once they knew this was out there, if they thought it was available. And the more they used it, the farther knowledge of it would spread, so the case load was literally infinite. Not even he could handle it all, not even if he wanted to.

How to use it for those who needed it, without having to do it for everybody?

They couldn't afford to train EVERYBODY, or even all of the medics, in the Yamanaka clan techniques. Or else, if they did, then no one would ever be safe in their own body again. People would be stealing one another's bodies to use them for things the owners probably wouldn't want done, and...

Naruto broke down crying himself when he realized the extent of suffering out there he could have stopped if not for basic facets of human nature.

He snorted, wryly thinking that he'd thought being a good tailor was tough!

----  
Author's Notes:

Sorry for the delay. Mom got deathly sick and I had to, or rather, I was the one privileged to take care of her.

Now if only I hadn't gotten sick at the same time. So I hope you'll forgive any sloppiness you see here, or if things aren't thought through properly.

But don't worry, everyone is on the rebound!


	41. Chapter 41

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-One

by Lionheart

----

If anything, Shizune had understated the demand for this new technique. No sooner had Ino invented it, and the others began using it, than the women of the village began talking about it to an extent not even the gossip centers of Konoha saw very often, and so of course the nobles heard of it, and EVEN THOUGH none of the Fire Lord's family were pregnant just then, he had the entire clan withdrawn from active ninja service for fear of harm or accident!

Sooner even than when he'd been letting people discover he was this amazing tailor, Naruto got pulled out of the chunin exams, he AND all of his genin girls, and the Fire Lord was looking to marry him off to one of the lesser and more disposable minor noble ladies of his court to more firmly cement his hold on the young lad with the amazing medical clan when the reset rescued them.

----

"Well, I was going to send all of you losers out to fight each other in no holds barred struggles, ambushing and killing each other in the Forest of Death," Anko declared to the room of genin. "But that just sounded too easy."

She smirked at the seriousness of most of the faces of the class. Okay, she had to admit, you do the same thing over and over and it just gets boring. So, since she was in charge of the second installment, and had authority to change it more or less on her whim, she did so. "So, instead, we're going to play a little game. It's called: Torture and interrogation! We'll have the chunin proctors select one member from each team, always a girl if you've got one as those make for the easiest marks for interrogation in most cases."

Anko noted the nervous looks of most of her prospective students, so she knew she was doing a good job as she continued. "She will be disarmed and bound as a pretend prisoner of war, and given a secret she has to keep if her team is to pass this exam. Then the remaining two members of her team will receive the kunoichi of some other team, while she gets dragged off to be handed to someone else in turn. The job of the two guys will be to get the secret information out of the kunoichi they receive - but since this is only a test, they'll not be permitted to do any permanent damage. We'll pretend that is because of delicate political situations, which happens more often than you'd think in real life."

Anko tossed her hair, secretly pleased by the frightened looks she saw. "It occurs often enough when you know a mark has a secret you need, but they are a member of an allied, or at least not enemy, village and so you can't just turn them into hamburger without risking a war. That also means no rape, sexual assault, or other crimes with serious consequences. A 'light touch only' interrogation, or one of the most difficult to do. Any team that crosses that line automatically fails. Any kunoichi that gives up her secret also fails on behalf of both her and her team. Any pair of guys that fail to get a secret out of their target prisoner fails the exam as well. To pass, a team has to succeed at both, getting the secret out of the prisoner they're given, while the 'captured' member has to not divulge hers. You'll have thirty minutes in which to work, and the girls are permitted to attempt to escape if they can."

A bunch of very serious genin looked at each other as one of the proctors called out for them to line up to receive room assignments.

The number of medics arriving in the building was not lost on anyone.

On Hinata's team, Shino turned to his teammates and said, very quietly, "No average member of most villages can withstand the sensation of a carpet of bugs crawling all over their body for long, and so long as they do not bite, no harm is done. We shall not have difficulties on our interrogation. Hinata, can you withstand yours?"

The Hyuga girl gave both of the boys on her team a confident, even bright, nod. "Yes!"

"You don't know what they'll pull," Kiba cautioned, concerned on her behalf.

"In some ways it hardly matters," she whispered back, flexing her fingers just a touch so they could see small blades of blue chakra energy form briefly at their tips. "Kurenai has been holding a small study club at her house for lots of Konoha's genin kunoichi. One of the things we've been studying is medicine. Whoever gets me will be expecting a bound, unarmed prisoner. But I don't need weapons, and with chakra scalpels to cut the ropes I won't be much of a prisoner, either. I'll be a full-on combatant, already at close quarters where I am at my most dangerous. And they don't dare do much damage in return trying to subdue me, for fear of failing the exam. If any kunoichi stands a chance on this test, I do."

Kiba looked relieved, and Shino merely nodded, satisfied. Both boys had also already begun silently planning contingencies in their minds for if the same occurred to them - receiving a prisoner who wasn't much of a prisoner, and how to gently subdue someone who was able to fight back.

Over across the room, Ino turned on her own teammates in one of those short, impromptu, very urgent and very quiet conferences that were forming all over the exam chamber.

She gave Shikamaru a hard glare. "Ok, guys, tell me straight up, are you even going to try to pass this exam at all? I don't want to be desperately holding out, subjected to who knows what, only to find out after that fact that it was all a pointless effort!"

Shikamaru and Choji shared a guilty glance, knowing that, given their choice, they'd have done next to nothing to pass this exam. Sitting down, eating potato chips, and chatting peacefully with whatever kunoichi the proctors delivered had been high on their agenda.

But the boys also knew that their fathers would never stand for them not even caring enough to enter the contest. Shikamaru in particular had been given very stern and sharp warnings by his mother about failing through non-effort. If they'd been in the test, and failed, not getting the secret, that was one thing. But to not even attempt to take it by bowing out before it started was going to buy him hell at home.

Although, both boys could also see the justice in what Ino was asking. They had no idea what she'd be subjected to, but whatever it was was NOT going to be pleasant! So it would be rude in the extreme to waste whatever effort she put into maintaining the secret she was given.

They also had to admit that they didn't want her end of the bargain.

Shikamaru opened his mouth to suggest something when Ino beat him to it.

"Because I could just blurt out the secret the moment I walk through the door of whatever room I get sent to, if you want," Ino told both boys in a very direct manner. Then she smirked, upholding a finger to instruct them in he consequences, "I just want you to know that I'll be telling both of your families that I did so, and why, that's all."

Shikamaru blanched.

Not working, he had some amount of leeway for, usually. Working was one of those things he had to do occasionally. Pretending to work happened more often. Getting CAUGHT pretending to work, however, was the worst of all possible outcomes for him!

His mom would be a nightmare about it for months. Until he made chunin, at least. That was the only thing he could think of that would appease her after being revealed in a major slack-off of that level.

"No, we'll get the secret. We promise," Choji answered for him around the potato chips in his mouth.

In another part of that chamber, Tenten turned to her teammates. "So, guys," she asked brightly, "Have you got any plans?"

"You hold out, we'll get our answer," Neji told her coldly and formally.

"That isn't much of a strategy," Tenten scowled at them.

"It will be successful. That is enough." The boy told her just as formally.

"Yosh! Our Fires of Youth burn so brightly! We cannot help but succeed!" Lee shouted aloud across the entire chamber.

Once the eyes of the other teams had turned away from them, back to their private conferences again, Tenten leaned closer to whisper. "Lee, you can't just make the girl do pushups for the half hour or so it will take. Have either of you got any coherent strategy for how to do this?"

"You hold out. We'll do our part," Neji told her again, just as coldly.

The girl rolled her eyes and huffed, turning away and folding her arms.

Other conversations were going even less brightly. Sakura had turned to her teammates showing her fear and lack of confidence over the upcoming test. She had supreme confidence in Sasuke - but this test focused directly on HER abilities as a ninja, and she couldn't hide behind him on this. Just as she was sure of Sasuke's success, so much was she certain of her own failure on this particular matter. And that left her in the unenviable position of having personally disappointed her crush by her failure to perform her part of this test, which just happened to matter very much to him.

Such a thing could easily cause him to reject or even hate her. She knew it, and she feared that more than she did not trying at all.

But she also knew she wasn't strong, and looking at the fierce ninja about that room, the girl knew inside that they would break her.

She wasn't strong. She would fail. And, as she faced her team, Sasuke saw that certain knowledge in her eyes and turned away from her in disgust.

Naruto, for all of the distance that had grown between his and his team over those resets, simply could not let that stand and interjected, "Hey, Sakura! What's it worth to you to pass? If we use disguises, I could switch places with you. I can take ANYTHING!"

The pink haired girl bounced in joy, clasping her hands and crying aloud, "Naruto! Would you do that for me?" she asked in bright hope.

"No," he returned, just as serious as she was bright, causing her hopes to crash down in confusion. "Not for you, nor for the team or the rank, either. But maybe you could offer something to convince me?"

She stared in frank disbelief at his foxy grin.

For Naruto's part, he didn't want anything. He was just playing with them, like Anko was doing with this test. It was to stir things up, keep them interesting and prevent events from getting entirely too boring.

They had no strict aims either for this test, or the reset. It was, to them, a sort of vacation where they weren't trying to achieve anything, drive for any kind of goal, or even further their training. It was just an opportunity to see how things could go if something big was different.

They'd found their need to take mental vacation days like this less than the need had been for Naruto when he was alone, but they still had to have some.

Sakura, for her part, was dazed by confusion. She'd just tried to make a charge on her 'Naruto loves me' credit card, only to find it'd been canceled. But she had none of the time required to find out when or why he'd stopped loving her. Sasuke was already waiting, saying nothing, yet paying attention to this conversation between the two of them anyway.

Sasuke already knew she felt she was doomed to failure, and if she DID fail him he may never forgive her! It would seriously ruin her chances.

So, ultimately, her relationship with Sasuke was at stake.

Also, there was the undeniable fact that Naruto was the most stubborn person she knew. He'd withstood most anything thrown at him yet. So, if he took her place, there was very little chance of failure.

The girl snorted, while Inner Sakura was cheering aloud that if six years of telling him she wasn't interested didn't stop him from asking her out, then half an hour of a non-damaging interrogation test had no chance to break Naruto's nerves.

"I'll but you ramen!" she played her trump card right away, hoping only that Sasuke wouldn't think this was any kind of date offering to the blond.

"Nope! Not interested," Naruto folded his hands behind his head casually as he kicked back on his heels and stared up at the ceiling. "I'm friends with the owner's daughter. All of my ramen is now free."

Sakura had to use a spatula to pry her jaw up off the floor. Her trump card hadn't been as much of a trump as she'd thought it was!

Screwing her face back into shape, the kunoichi tried harder. "I'll ask Kakashi to teach you a jutsu?" she tempted sweetly.

Naruto turned a disbelieving eyeball on her. "Why would he teach me one if you asked when he hasn't taught YOU one yet?"

Stumped, the kunoichi had no answer to that and turned desperate. "How about I allow you to take me out on one date - only one! No use asking me for more!"

All her blond teammate did was shrug nonchalantly. "I don't want any. Hinata and I have started going out, and she's a very good girlfriend to me. I don't have any use for your halfhearted leavings when there's a girl who's already interested in me."

For a second time, the pink haired girl had to use a spatula to pry her jaw up off the floor. But this time she also had to reel her eyeballs back into their sockets after she'd done that.

"You know, you're not being very convincing," Naruto told her in bored tones.

Realizing that her time for doing any sort of trade was running out, that the test proctors had already begun walking around the room separating out the kunoichi, Sakura fell back on the bulwark of the desperate. "Anything!" she cried out in a fierce whisper, clasping her hands before her. "I'll do anything! You just name it!"

Instead of answering her, Naruto turned a bored glance to their other teammate, who was getting more than a bit annoyed that proceedings had dragged on so long that now their chances for carrying this off were being diminished. "Sasuke, you just heard her offer. But I don't trust her not to back out of whatever I ask afterward. So, I want your word as an Uchiha that if she backs out of our bargain you'll never permit her to seek your romantic attentions again."

Sakura's face drained white in shock that Naruto would go that far as to ask that level of surety. Although, Inner Sakura had to admit, she hadn't really meant her promise, and if he'd asked anything more than something mildly inconvenient she'd have put no effort at all into it before turning him down.

Sasuke drilled their pink haired teammate with a steady glare, before answering Naruto, "You have my word."

That response stunned the kunoichi into thoughtless immobility.

The next thing Sakura knew, she was standing where Naruto had been, while someone who looked exactly like her was being escorted off by a pair of chunin. The doppleganger looked back toward her and shot a victory sign.

Looking down proved she was wearing an orange jumpsuit, while a touch to her face told her that it wasn't her features she was wearing.

She was not as good a ninja as she thought, or she would have realized that this was no ordinary Transformation illusion. But whatever it was, it had fooled the test proctors and gotten her out of her certain failure, so she was grateful.

However, that 'anything goes' promise hanging over her head did much to diminish her joy over her recent deliverance.

"Fail and you die," Gaara glared at his sister as she was about to be led away.

To his surprise, she laughed brightly in reply, almost causing Kankuro an aneurysm that she would risk their psycho little brother's ire like that. She even reached over and PINCHED GAARA'S CHEEK!!

"Now you behave," she told him. "And when I come back we'll all go out for ice cream and to play with some balloons."

Convinced that their sister had totally taken leave of her senses and lost that healthy, self-respecting terror in which all thinking beings held their murderous little brother, and that said psycho was going to lash out any moment to destroy her, Kankuro began scanning the chamber for a good place to hide while his puppet got killed in his stead as part of inevitable collateral damage. He'd barely been at this a second when he felt a tug on his sleeve, and looked down, nearly wetting himself at the sight of Gaara there touching his arm.

"Come," the murderous little psychopath told him. "We have our room assignment."

"You aren't going to kill me?" Kankuro's traitorous tongue blurted out before his brain had a chance to properly censor that comment. "No murderous rampage destroying this chamber and hundreds of people?"

"No," Gaara returned sourly. "I've done things like that before. It is nothing new to me. What I have not done is played with these 'balloons'. Tell me, do they squeal as they die?"

Kankuro blinked several times, waiting for reality. Already his traitorous mouth was mumbling, "Uh, only if you let the air out real slow..."

----

"Oh, dear, oh, dear! What is going to happen to me?" the little blonde girl led in by the two jonin kept on mumbling, her twin pigtails hanging low to cover her downturned face.

"Heh, heh, heh..." splut.

The two Rain genin who'd been slapping tools of various menacing natures into their hands fell over as the fists Naruko had shoved in their faces connected solidly.

They didn't get up again.

"Well that was anticlimactic!" Naruto in female guise said solidly as she raised her head back up, dropping the whole 'helpless damsel' act.

"Come along," Kurenai told her. "Next room."

"Aww, why do I have to do so many?" Naruko groused, already tired of this.

"Well, you wouldn't want any of the real girls go to any of the really dangerous boys, do you?"

"No, I wouldn't," Naruko sighed, resigning herself to this as she allowed herself to be manacled again.

Seeing the other jonin stare at her, Kurenai laughed. "Oh! Don't worry. Anko only promised them a girl from another team! Not that she wouldn't be a boy in disguise, or more dangerous than most chunin, or even that they wouldn't be the tenth or eleventh room she got sent to!"

----

"Now beg," a voice said softly.

"PLEASE!! You've GOT to let me go! I'm sorry! I'll do ANYTHING!"

"Will you tell me the secret?"

"I DON'T KNOW ANY!" The terrified boy pled up to Hinata, where she was standing over him. His teammate had already passed out beside him. "THEY ONLY TOLD THE GIRLS!"

"Well, in that case it's alright," the kind girl allowed, patting her would-be captor on the head before turning about and leaving the room where she'd been taken.

----

"Oh dear. When they disarmed me they seem to have forgotten the tigers I had up my sleeves," Temari told the two terrified youngsters from Sound as they stared up into the jaws of the mighty beasts that literally had the boys heads between their teeth.

All the tigers had to do was clamp down and those boys would be history. The paws on their chests holding them down didn't hurt any, either.

Yet.

Sitting down to file her nails, the girl from Sand didn't even look up to see the two boys paralyzed by fright, afraid to move lest they anger the tigers.

"Now, what shall we talk about?"

----

"Talk!" Sasuke ordered sternly.

"Oh, please! You've got to do better than that!" his bored prisoner stated. The kunoichi only wished she could be filing her nails. This was boring!

----

The girl's muffled screams were actually kind of disturbing.

Choji rose up just barely enough to let the girl gasp in a shallow breath before he sat back down again.

"Something about this is so wrong," Shikamaru lazily shook his head.

The girl made the hand signal they'd previously agreed upon for her surrender and Choji got up, no longer sitting on the bound girl's face. As she drew in her first gasps in over a minute not drawn from between Choji's boxer clad butt-cheeks, Shikamaru reminded her in a bored tone, "Remember, if you don't give up the code after having signaled surrender then he sits back down, and doesn't get up again until you pass out."

"I'll tell! I'll tell!" the poor foreign kunoichi desperately reassured them.

And then she proceeded to puke her guts out.

Shikamaru sighed. "So troublesome."

"Sorry," Choji shrugged. "I didn't mean to fart so much."

The poor kid was actually kind of embarrassed.

----

"Hi! Wow! You know, that's actually kind of creepy?" the foreign girl who had Shino's bugs crawling all over her stated in a calm tone. "Where do you think up things like this?"

Shino leaned in close, took off his glasses for the first time in like, ever, and staring her straight in the eyes so she could SEE the bugs crawling around INSIDE of his pupils, whispered, "This is what I live for."

She screamed.

Kiba covered his ears.

Shino did not permit himself to smile over her reaction to the minor illusion. Thinking you were freaky nuts who didn't care was the first part of breaking your prisoner.

Ibiki would have approved.

----

"Talk!" Sasuke ordered sternly, again.

"Do you guys have, like, a magazine I could read or something?"

----

Tenten was still out in the halls, where a trio of chunin were STILL going through her pockets and pulling out weapons, while a fourth wrote down her list on a clipboard, so it could be returned to her.

"Another kunai."

"Two dozen flachette canisters with explosive tags, not currently armed."

"Claymore."

"Sickle and chain combo."

"Just plain sickle."

A tired and VERY put upon sigh. "Another kunai."

"Spear."

As he looked up at her from the deep pile all around her, Tenten shot the man passing by a slightly apologetic smile.

He simply turned the page and went on writing.

"Blowgun."

A DEEP groan sounded, and one of the trio announced, " Another kunai."

----

"Talk!' Neji ordered in stern tones.

The kunoichi he was addressing blew a bubble in her gum and popped it, before going back to chewing without saying a word.

----

GROAN. "Another sickle."

MOAN. "Another chain."

One of the chunin almost broke down crying. "ANOTHER kunai!"

----

"Uhm... Talk!" Sakura tried ordering sternly.

"Do you guys mind? Try to keep it down a little bit, you're disturbing my nap!" their prisoner retorted.

----

"The thing you've got to see here," Kankuro explained to the unfortunate Konoha kunoichi who had been delivered to them, and now resided rather stoically, ignorant of her true danger, in Gaara's Sand Coffin technique, "Is that this man is insane."

He motioned to his brother, who did not object.

"You see, the thing is, he's already killed hundreds of people, including our uncle. Our whole town is terrified of him." Kankuro sweated as he divulged this information, hoping against hope that it would not get him killed out of hand. "It won't matter to him a bit that we'll fail the test, he just LIKES killing! And while we can take this test again... you won't be able to appreciate the fact that the rest of your team passed without you."

He gave her a nervous, helpless sort of shrug.

Finally disturbed enough to look at Gaara's eyes, and terrified by what she saw there, the kunoichi began to blab at once.

----

"Another spear," the chunin sobbed, as if he'd been stabbed with it.

"Another kunai," one of the others blubbered out in between his sobs.

The third found something, and perked up. "Fishing pole, fly and lure, and high test line."

The two others perked up as well. One of them asking, "Hey, is that really a graphite pole? Can I see that?"

"There's gotta be a pond around here somewhere," the last agreed.

"What about..?" the bloodless accounted type with the clipboard began asking, pointing with his pen at Tenten, still standing there blushing.

"Forget it!" the lead of the trio called, already departing. "If she can carry THAT many weapons she's welcome to it!!"

"Yeah, the team about to question her is almost out of time already!" the last called back over his shoulder.

Tenten just blushed and shrugged at the accountant's curious look.

----

Anko smirked.

Most of the 'girls' were Naruto's shadow clones under shapechanges. If they got dispelled, that team lost. So slight damage was still too much.

Most teams that got rough, therefore, got expelled immediately.

It was a day that creativity got rewarded.

Ah! It was a great day to be a Konoha jonin!

----

"Talk!" Sasuke ordered.

"You know, I think she's actually snoring," Sakura offered timidly.

----

"Tell!"

"BWAHAHAHA!! NO! NEVER!! Hahahahahahaha!!!!" Eheehee!!"

Lee did not let up on his relentless tickle assault. "YES!" He shouted out in glee as his amazing hands found ticklish spots the girl didn't know she had. "THE FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTLY IN THIS ONE!!"

Off standing in the corner, Neji hung his head in his hands.

"AHahahahah!!' the helpless girl yelled, squirming awfully against her bonds where she was tied to her chair.

"Speak! Or I will make you pee! And I will record this event to show it to all of your friends in our village!" Lee shouted out from behind his camcorder, one hand still reaching out to tickle her devilishly.

"Enough! Enough! Uncle!" the girl cried out. "I'll talk! Just let me breathe!"

Lee, filled with a juvenile trust in kunoichi, allowed her to get her breath back. Still red faced and smiling, on having recovered, the girl told him. "Nope! Sorry, I changed my mind!"

Instantly his fingers lunged out. She was crying for mercy in seconds, unable to breathe not long after, and in danger of wetting herself quite prodigiously (on film no less - she hadn't forgotten that!) soon after.

"I'LL TELL! I'LL TELL!" the poor girl shouted.

"Two gasps!" Lee, now much wiser, shouted. "If you do not speak by then you lose your chance and I will continue to tickle until you embarrass yourself before your friends forever! Which will it be, a chunin who has to hide her face from everyone she knows or a genin who can try for the rank again? A shame which can never end or a six month wait? Now is your chance to decide!"

"I'll TALK!" she pled. And then the girl proceeded to spill her guts about the secret.

----  
Author's Notes:

Well, that chapter kind of came as a surprise to me. It filled absolutely NONE of my plans, but on the other hand was amazingly fun to write!

Got to give credit to my muse for often being smarter than I am.

Any votes on what Sakura's forfeit should be? I haven't really decided.


	42. Chapter 42

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Two  
The Ultimate Hyuga Answer

by Lionheart

----

"Neji Hyuga vs Hinata Hyuga!" the head examiner for the third test called.

"You should just give up." Neji told his cousin after the pair of them had walked out onto the floor for the preliminaries. "You know you cannot defeat me. Quit now and you will avoid sustaining an injury, or possible death."

Hinata looked like she might falter, until Naruto called out encouragement from the stands. Then the frail young heiress settled into a stance firmly, a look of determination on her face.

The little girl, for once in her life, seemed determined to do or die.

Surprised, but somewhat gratified he would be able to take out his anger on a member of the main house at last, Neji also assumed a fighting pose.

They activated their bloodlines at the same time.

'What the?!?' was Neji's immediate thought as his all-around x-ray vision slapped into place, alerting him to his surroundings in fine detail.

Although he stood across from Hinata, his cousin, the daughter of his fathers' elder brother whom he had known and not so privately despised all of his life, once his bloodline activated it revealed that another Hinata was up on the balcony, under a disguise to look like Naruto.

Also, she had one Sharingan eye, and it was activated.

In an instant, he realized that she was not the only one. Two other kunoichi from their village had active Sharingan eyes, but to disguise that fact were under Transformation techniques to look like themselves.

But which was the real Hinata? There couldn't be TWO of her!

He had no more time to ponder this further as the one opposite him on the challenge floor swept in on her attack, and whatever doubts he had about her performance got swept away. This was Hinata. The attack routine was all hers, and he knew it intimately, having sparred with her countless times - always to her defeat.

She showed forth unusual spirit, but she obviously felt that it was Naruto who had cheered for her, spurring her on, rather than a disguised... whatever.

Neji didn't care why she cared for that boy. In his heart he put it down to two losers taking comfort in their equals and left it at that. But he could not let this question slide: who was the other Hinata? The one watching with a stolen Sharingan and disguised to look like Naruto?

As he blocked Hinata's strikes, closing off her chakra points in his own blindingly fast blows, the boy saw the Uchiha passed out in a stall in the mens' room. His eye sockets were empty, and in the next stall over was the jonin Kakashi, also in the same state: passed out and deprived of Sharingan.

So this was clearly enemy action. But who had done it? And why were they watching his fight with Hinata rather than making their getaway? The Gentle Fist style was worthless to all but a Hyuga, as it required their own unique bloodline to function.

And why be disguised as Naruto? Or why look like Hinata underneath? The Hyuga bloodline saw through all illusions, so what could that be?

Neji allowed Hinata to strike him, taking the blow on his chest where she thought she could stop his heart, only to trap her hand with his and roll up her sleeve, showing to all that he had successfully blocked off all of her chakra points, rendering her helpless before he'd taken her inconsequential hit. His victory and superiority were clear and unmistakable in that moment.

Then, instead of falling prone in the weakness she ought to be feeling, Hinata grinned at him, smirking, stood there and flexed, red chakra emitting from all of her formerly closed points, forcing them violently open again, before she formed a handseal and resumed the assault.

Luckily for Neji, he had kept his bloodline activated, otherwise he would've missed the formation of a dozen shadow clones all around him. As it was, Hinata and her clones closed in and began to attack from all directions simultaneously, acting in carefully choreographed concert, always pressing in and never letting up from any angle.

Neji found himself resorting to his clan's secret defensive technique, the Heavenly Spin, more than once to fend off the deadly coordinated onslaught. But the clones had the weakness of all shadow clones, in that they could only sustain a single hit before dispersing.

Not able to respond to his speed when he was fighting full force, the clone army dispersed and Hinata, though real or fake he didn't know, lay at his feet panting and trying to restart her own stopped heart.

She succeeded, somewhat to his surprise, but not before the head examiner proclaimed him the winner and medics began carting her off.

On suspicion, Neji kept his bloodline activated for a few moments more, long enough to see the Hinata he had fought release some sort of solid, non-illusion transformation to become Naruto, and bounce up off the stretcher they had carried her out on.

The two 'medics' also released the same sort of techniques to become copies of Anko, the special jonin who had led the previous exam.

"Hokage-sama," the boy began, then the village leader turned to face him and interrupted.

"What you have seen, Neji Hyuga, is an S-rank mission approved by myself, and you are to keep it secret. Understand?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama!" the boy respectfully bowed his head and walked away, determined to keep the secret.

Under Naruto's solid Transformation, Tsunade permitted herself to smirk. The real Hokage was passed out in a pool of blood in his office, after having enjoyed one too many (which was only one, really. At his age the stress on his heart was dangerous) of Naruto's Sexy Paradise illusions.

The nosebleed had been tremendous.

The old pervert had truly enjoyed being knocked out in that fashion, and that left them free to shapeshift a replacement for him during the exams. It had to be Tsunade, as so far she was the only one sufficiently subtle in using that electrical technique to manipulate the scoreboard.

Really, they'd had to do it. There wasn't another good way to arrange to let the girls use stolen Sharingans to copy out the Hyuga Gentle Fist style. Neji was better than any of them at it, so it made sense to use him as their copy dummy. And Naruto, bless his heart, had copied Hinata's style long ago, so could make for an almost perfect replacement for her!

Naruto fought Neji using Hinata's form so Hinata herself could observe to learn Neji's moves. And, while they were doing that for Hinata, it made sense to let the other up and coming Gentle Fist students learn as well. Although, those in the witness gallery had to be under illusions so no one else there knew they had Sharingans and wondered where they'd gotten them.

And all that led back to why she was here impersonating the Hokage, because it was obvious to them that Neji's bloodline would be activated during that fight, because it always was when someone used the Gentle Fist style (and they'd seen this scene before, of course), and they knew he'd see through those illusions because that's part of what the bloodline does - But it couldn't see through a Shapeshift, so she could be on hand to shut down his suspicions before they caused them any problems.

Of course, impersonating the Hokage had other benefits, such as sending forth people into all-new, interesting confrontations!

So she stood back and watched quietly as Shino fought that chakra-draining guy. You never really knew who was going to win in some of these combinations until you'd tried them, but with that information they could refine their invasion plans.

And choose Konoha's future team leaders, naturally.

----

Kurenai looked out across the green swath of grass to where Sakura was laboring in great panting breaths to squeeze one more kick out of her body at the post. Earlier the girl had been trudging like a condemned criminal in a chain gang past her on a long jog.

The poor, pink-spandex-wearing girl's forfeit had been to match Lee in his training regime for a week, and for every kick, every blow, every step she fell short by the newly drawn seal on her forehead caused her to lose a hair.

The poor girl was already half way bald, and it was only the first day of the week!

Anko, who was in charge of the second test, had decreed that since Naruto had personally taken care of over a dozen 'Kunoichi' positions without losing out on keeping the secret once, that he'd passed even though his team didn't. She had that kind of power, and so they hadn't reset yet. So out there Sakura was, paying for her rash decision to offer to do anything.

But Kurenai's thoughts were not on Sakura's suffering. It was, more to the point, on her own. For she had already struggled through something the other girls in the clan were only discovering - namely, that personal relationships outside of those also caught in the resets didn't survive very well.

Naruto had been through this a long time ago. Anko had no close relationships to lose, but Kurenai...

She sighed.

Asuma had always been an indifferent suitor to her. He'd just been the best she had, not like that was any kind of ringing compliment, either to him or to her. Not wanting to admit to their relationship had been another serious damper to her - a girl wanted to be acknowledged!

The jonin sighed, watching Sakura fall down, exhausted, and clutch at her ever-increasing forehead as more hairs fell out. What the girl didn't know was that the hair loss would only last a week, and Naruto had put her under a slight regeneration seal based on Kabuto's technique so that, even though it probably wasn't obvious to her, she was learning at an accelerated rate and the muscles she was acquiring in this would make her a far better ninja - at least until the reset took them all away again.

Still, though she suffered now, it was doing her good. And Naruto was testing out that seal to use as a training device for the non-Kyubi decorated, so it had potential to do a great amount of good.

It was a decent metaphor for most of them, actually.

Kurenai sighed again. She'd kept letting her thoughts get distracted from the real issue. And, she had to admit that she didn't want to face it.

Her love life was, literally, going nowhere.

Asuma had never been any kind of prize, and he had a worse amount of 'not wanting to be rushed into a commitment' than most of the male ninja. Any more and he'd almost be nonfunctional!

No, she had been unsatisfied with the pace of their relationship before the time loops put all progress on pause. Now it was positively maddening!

If one were to describe love as food, feeding a hunger, as in some ways it was, before she had been on short rations, but now the red eyed female jonin was starving to death!

She didn't need much, but she had to have something. It twisted a person to be all cut off and alone, and she didn't want to go through a metamorphoses into the kind of bizarre creature that made up most of Konoha's high ranking ninja - too scared to trust they isolated themselves from close contact until they turned out, well, like Gai or Kakashi.

No, she wasn't going to let that happen to her!

She sighed again, for what had to be the fourth or fifth time.

Okay. Being paired with Asuma was unsatisfying at the best of times, but the added difficulty of her growing and changing while he didn't, staying tacked just exactly where he was... no. They'd never had enough of a relationship to survive that kind of stress.

So, she had to admit to herself at last what she'd been trying to avoid facing for the longest time. Her so-called relationship with the Hokage's son was over. He couldn't give her the kind of love and support she needed. It wasn't his fault, much... okay, parts of it were.

Hinata had been so utterly devoted to Naruto that she'd loved him well enough even despite the resets to build an impressive bond between them, and Kurenai doubted if, alone, he could've handled it as well as he'd done. If the jonin had been in his place, she probably would've started killing people.

Again she caught herself trying to distract herself on a tangent. She and Asuma were through, finished, not going anywhere, and even if they did get out of this reset she couldn't see herself going back to him. She'd barely been able to stand the pace of their courtship before she'd gotten all lonely and desperate for more. Now that she was, well...

After having been very hungry for a time, nearly starving in fact, the body needs a great deal of nourishment to compensate and rebuild what was lost. The heart was, in many ways, the same. Having been starved for affection, she couldn't just go back to short rations. It wasn't healthy. She'd be wearing green spandex or reading porn in no time.

So, her relationship to Asuma was through, over and done with.

What was next?

It hadn't helped her gritting her teeth over her lack of romance one bit to be den mother to the happiest relationships she'd ever HEARD of! Naruto and those girls were all bundles of joyous energy and it would've sparked jealousy during the best of times.

It didn't help her jealousy much to know that one of those 'girls' was, in fact, older than she was, or that no one, not even Naruto, knew how old he was in mind by then, and it was compounded by that there being more than enough of him to go around.

And, also, that he was the only guy in those resets.

The jonin's lips quirked, thinking back to an earlier conversation. Naruto had been lounging around, almost criminally comfortable, in the laps of Ino and Hana, and... just about everybody, actually (those clones of his were really something else for administering to a girl's desire for snuggles), when one of him had piped up, "People don't like demons, right? 'Cause they hurt things and stuff?"

"Yeah." Tenten looked up from what she'd been doing, curious.

Naruto had nodded firmly, as if resolving something that had been bothering him for a long time. Then he'd brightened surprisingly to ask, "Hey! What's the furthest thing from a demon?"

Shizune had actually looked up from what she'd been doing to answer this question. "An angel."

"Okay," Naruto enfolded all of the girls in hugs. "That's what you are, my angels."

It was the sort of heart-meltingly sweet moments like that that made Kurenai want to so strangle Asuma and demand he give her romance or death.

She'd even done that once. It hadn't helped.

Trouble was, the kid practically dripped that kind of sweetness toward his 'angels' on a regular basis. It made her want to...

... turn in Asuma and ask for a replacement, as this boyfriend was obviously defective.

With a grin on her lips, Kurenai got up from where she'd been musing. There was really only one thing to do. It was time she turn in her badge as den mother and ask for a full membership in the clan.

She had to go get some of that sweetness for herself.

And, it was time for her to go admit to Anko that her friend had been right all along, that Kurenai had been a fool for not going this way from the start. Anko had been gently, well, gently for Anko, pressuring her all along to drop her former boyfriend and go with Naruto. That was the reason she'd been out here thinking this through all alone, rather than what she'd usually do, of bouncing her ideas around a chorus of trustworthy girl friends, as felt far more comfortable and natural to her.

The only girls she knew who could even remotely understand were all gently but firmly in favor of her dropping Asuma like a chunk of lead and letting Naruto take over the boyfriend slot in her life!

It was about time she took them up on that offer.

But, of course, she couldn't retire as den mother without electing a suitable replacement!

----

Naruto's Angels were taking some time off in one of those casual dress moments that somehow turned into everyone wearing cute pajamas, creating a slumber party atmosphere, when Kurenai walked in from wherever she'd been, hauling along a non-reset women with her.

Several different shades of eyes blinked as the angels took in the newcomer. Most went through a brief summation that went, roughly, and in no particular order: female, not in reset, dark purple hair and eyes, ANBU, possibly jonin...

"Hey, aren't you the girlfriend of Hayate?" Ino asked, only a heartbeat ahead of some others.

"Yugao Uzuki, right?" Tenten asked, just a heartbeat after.

"Yes," the ANBU straightened up, rubbing her arm where Kurenai had twisted it to bring her along in a manner oddly reminiscent of Anko. "Now, why am I here? Who are you all, anyway?"

"You are here mostly because our little Naruto has slacked off in his own training, having gotten distracted by teaching his 'angels'. Am I right?" Anko asked smartly from where she was lounging, reading in her eyes that her long term friend had finally let her resistance crumple, and was about to join the ranks of the active wives.

Well, good for her!

"Mostly," Kurenai nodded to concede the points, both spoken and unspoken.

"So, are we getting a new member?" Kin asked, looking just as relaxed as the rest of them. "Well then, welcome to the club!"

Temari waved her welcome from her own cushion, while others were just confused, not having thought of accepting new members in a long time. And that was Kin, who had appeared after a great deal more planning than this.

As Yugao goggled at the Sound and Sand kunoichi lounging around with the crew from Konoha, Kurenai filled her in, partially, "You see here two of our deep cover agents. Kin, from Sound, has been updating us on their plans. Temari, from Sand, has been with us for quite some time - a valuable ally who has taught us some very secret and precious Wind techniques usually kept under close safeguard by that village."

The ANBU nodded, straightening. Deep cover. That would explain it, then.

They were ninja. Deep cover assignments simply had to happen, and it was usually women who got selected to do them, as they had a far higher success rate. There was a built-in excuse of a bride coming to live in a new town to be with her husband, for one. And often that poor husband never knew he'd married a ninja who was there to spy on them.

Well, not unless that kunoichi got caught and executed, at any rate. No, deep cover assignments were something nobody wanted, and those that had them earned equal measures of respect and pity.

So, seeing a couple of admitted deep cover agents lounging before her did a lot to explain to Yugao why she was brought there so roughly. Whatever it was they were about to reveal to her couldn't just have been explained to her out there on the streets, where anybody could have been listening.

Kurenai fluffed out her hair. "There are two things you really ought to know to get started with us," she informed the ANBU. "One is, that I am retiring from my 'den mother' slot among these girls to go active duty among them, and I'd like you to take over my role - which consists in large part of breaking up whatever disagreements occur among them (which aren't many), and in shielding their activities from the village. I'll still be doing a little bit of the latter, but not as much as I was. I won't have time for it, for one."

Yugao nodded. Spymaster, or spymistress in this case. Organizing an intel squad, acting as administrator for them, was never something that you just applied for. You either got selected out of the blue or you didn't get the job. She felt honored to have been chosen, actually.

"Second part," Kurenai added, still acting casually. "Is that former Konoha Hokage candidate and now missing ninja Orochimaru is about to attack this village, leading two forces, made up in equal parts of ninja from both Sand and Sound. The village of Sound he actually founded for this purpose, using it as a cheap, expedient way to build up his own ninja force to reduce us."

The ANBU swordswoman stiffened in fright. This was MAJOR news!!

"Why hasn't the ANBU heard anything? The Hokage ought to be informed at once!" Yugao began prepping for action.

"He has been," Ino told her, sadly, softly and sourly. She huffed. "So far we haven't been able to convince him as to the strength of our evidence."

"Kin, Temari, Ino, why don't you get changed and go with her to report to the Hokage in person on this issue?" Kurenai told them, before turning to Yugao. "After you come back, we'll have you meet with Naruto. There are some things that have to be taken care of before you can join our group."

Giving her predecessor a curt but certain nod, the ANBU waited impatiently while those girls named changed into outdoor attire. Then she darted off to herd them to the Hokage, bearing their safety til the secret was delivered as her paramount concern.

The deep cover pair were probably going to die after revealing their IDs to deliver this vital warning, but that was hardly her immediate concern. No, her first priority was to get that information to the Hokage, only after that could she spare the mental cycles toward running the extraction protocols to get them out of those dangerous deep cover roles.

"So, why did you recruit her, really?" Anko sidled up to her long term friend after the ANBU had gone.

They didn't bother to discuss why she'd sent her off to report to the Hokage as that was just way too obvious. You couldn't start out announcing "Hey, we're all caught in a time loop, would you care to join us?" No, the first time or two you had to treat everything normal, until they could come to accept that other bit of important information on their own, after it could be backed up by personal observations.

Anything else, you'd only be wasting your breath, causing them to doubt your sanity or wondering what odd deceptions you'd been trying to pull.

"It was seeing that fight with Neji," Kurenai admitted, sitting down. Noting she had the eyes of Hinata on her, she elaborated, "None of us are going to be fast enough to beat him no matter how much of the Gentle Fist we learn. Our muscles are static, for the moment. So even after we have the skill, our bodies just won't be able to match his speed."

Anko was nodding, having already figured out the next bit. "So, the new chick is your answer."

The illusion mistress nodded.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hinata had gotten thrown by this odd turn and wanted an explanation.

"Hinata, dear," her jonin instructor smiled for her, but it was a stressed out smile. "You'll never beat your cousin at your clan's art. You just won't do it, not while we can't improve our speed, at any rate. So I brought in a sword expert." She paused, hoping it would be self evident, but Hinata only blinked at her, wordlessly asking for an explanation.

Anko smirked. "Swords haven't got chakra points, kid. You stick your hand out to punch the creep and what happens? He touches you first, closing off important points and defeating your blow before it even happens. So, you stick out a sword to make your attacks instead. Even if he blocks it, there is nothing there for him to touch and shut down. It's sharp metal, and that's all it's got to be. We don't have to obtain even a fraction of his speed, as we've suddenly got a ton more reach. He's got the length of the blade, three or more feet, he's got to get through unhurt before he can hurt you. And that means once we've got enough skill to where he cannot cross that three or four feet safely he's in real trouble, as we create a combat zone where he can't hurt us, but we can easily hurt him. And, as our skill increases, we can force him to stay in that zone where he is getting hurt and we aren't."

"There are ways and abilities to defeat sword users," Kurenai admitted. "But just as many counters for them. It's like wire use, not ideal for everything, but very valuable when and where it is useful."

"Tools give us advantages, kiddo," Anko smirked, stretching out like a cat. "That's why after hundreds of years people keep using them."

"Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'M excited to learn what she has to teach us!" Tenten blurted out enthusiastically.

----  
Author's Notes:

Well, I was out on the web, searching for something good to read, when I up and realized that the good feelings I wanted all came to me while I was writing. So, here we are!

Odd that.


	43. Chapter 43

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Three

by Lionheart

----

Tenten dodged the shuriken and ducked a blow at her face, responding with a triple uppercut out of three directions, one punch, one kick, and her tail, the end of which was glowing with a Thousand Birds technique.

It had been simplicity itself to engineer one of those resets where Kakashi snuck Sasuke out of the Forest of Death to teach him that prized technique, then replace the spoiled avenger with one of themselves, suitable outfitted with a stolen Sharingan, of course.

Then, on one of them having learned it, they could share that technique with the entire clan, naturally.

Naruto tried dodging out of the way of the incoming blows, blocking the punch and evading the kick, only to get nailed by the lightning tipped tail and vanish, the sparring clone dispersing instantly under the blast.

A round of applause came from the watching clan members at Tenten's new move. Naruto was an expert at dodging by now, so to nail him with anything was quite an accomplishment. To hit him with anything so lethal even more so, as he devoted extra attention to getting out of the way of those.

Of course, as Tenten stood there blushing, flush with her victory, she had to admit most of how she'd hit him had been in the new tail technique - not that it was tipped with a Thousand Birds, they'd been using a variety of jutsu to tip it for a while now. Stinger type attacks where something deadly tipped the tail were one major aspect of their new style. Flinging about Fireballs and other projectile attacks with it was only slightly more popular.

No, the new aspect of her tail attack was in adapting Orochimaru's flexible body technique to it.

That had come about only after a substantial amount of work with the Kyubi. But where their tails used to have reach no longer than their bodies, with the added bonus of Orochimaru's Body Flexibility applied to it, Tenten had proved that she could now stretch hers about twenty feet away, lightning quick. That meant an ability to strike a close combat opponent out of any angle, and really added to the potential unpredictability of her attacks.

So the applause were more than merited.

For the next test, Hinata sent out a clone of her own to spar with Tenten's, so they could see how the Gentle Fist style measured up against the new moves, and see if they had to be adapted any.

After testing it against Hinata, Temari would be next to see how the new style performed in a more traditional ninja battle, one mixing up elemental techniques and other ninjutsu moves and attacks in amongst the martial art combat moves and strikes.

She would be followed by Hana, using her clan's style. But the crown jewel of this demonstration would be trying out their own style versus the Uchiha clan martial art.

It'd been just as easy to arrange for Sasuke to be caught as a 'poo wielder' again and ambushed by Itachi as it had been to replace him and learn the Thousand Birds. And, by stealing Kakashi's Sharingan again, then sending in waves of various clones, see how the infamous Uchiha traitor had dealt with them, in the process learning the Uchiha clan fighting style from a master.

So, with that style on tap to be taught among the clan members, they had that much more ability to not only draw on it for inspiration to drive the progress of their own style, but to test it against one probable opponent, and not incidentally, a style created by stealing the best moves in all of the elemental countries.

No, it would take a while to fully incorporate and test things, but they were confident of having a style worth possessing once they were done with this.

One didn't drawn an effective martial art out of thin air. Anyone who created a martial art already had to know something about fighting, and the more one knew the better their potential style could be. That's really all a martial art was, carefully thought through and condensed fighting experience, with a ton of contemplation done on the factors that make it work to optimize those. But with all this material to adapt from and test against, they were well on their way to having something useful to call their own in the Kitsune Clan.

It was still in the beginning stages, but the outlook looked promising.

Over in the next training field, other clones of the Kitsune Clan were out practicing their 'Whisker Technique', blindfolded and learning to dodge on the prompting of subtle air pressure waves alone. And out in the forests around Konoha, they also had clones, only those were learning to use their ears to great effect in tracking the local wildlife.

Hana was leading another group of clones out in the forests on the other side of town doing the same thing, only with their noses, using the Inuzuka clan techniques to heighten their senses of smell.

Once all of this came together, it had promise to be very useful indeed.

----

Anko looked out on the training yard and smirked.

Oddly enough, while some of the girls had begun gently floating the question of stopping the resets, the call had been made not to do so just yet.

One could see the girl's side of things. The resets did limit them in many important ways, and while they could sidestep much of the worst of the aspects, it was still uncomfortable not to be able to progress naturally.

The prevailing opinion was that since everything seemed to be based upon Naruto's success in the chunin tests, they really ought to be able to get out of the time loop once he made chunin. And, since they now knew of a pattern that made the village love him, overcoming their hate and thus their unwillingness to promote him, they could conceivably do that.

But Anko had argued vehemently against it.

The first of her arguments was the invasion. No matter how they reset so far, there had always been some major casualties in Konoha, and this was their home town, they were supposed to protect and save it.

So she wanted to keep those resets going, at least until they could stop the invasion effectively, at minimal cost.

On the other hand, Sand was Temari's home town. Already weakened by the stupid and self-destructive policies of their daimyo reducing their ninja force on purpose, the dreadful losses THEY incurred during the invasion did that town no good at all.

And it was Temari's home. So she did want to save it.

On that note, Temari had actually looked into what happened to the Kazekage, her father, during one full length reset. Naruto had never paid any particular attention to it, he just knew the old guy had died sometime during the fighting.

Temari had been fuming after she'd discovered Orochimaru's deception, that her father had been dead for quite some time, months even, and that the Snake Sannin had been impersonating him, having taken his place in order to falsely use his office to push the whole invasion deal forward.

It had been hard for Temari to forgive Naruto for not noticing that earlier.

In some ways Anko could forgive him for not noticing, as the revelation happened in a split second during which Naruto had always been busy with other things, mostly with his Angels, in fact, as he'd started acquiring brides not long after going into full length resets, and they were understandably important to him. Taking care of them had been his priority.

However, her ninja side was disgusted over anyone who could overlook such an important strategic detail, especially after they'd started to track the old freak's movements around town. That was an inexcusable failure on the intel side of things, and such things could cause a great deal more harm to him, his growing family, and their village, than not hanging around to pamper them.

Not that she was in any way opposed to the pampering. It's just... Aaarggghh!!

Kurenai had put it best. She hadn't been speaking of this situation, but it still applied here. "Don't be afraid to replace something good with something better."

It was GOOD to be concerned about one's spouses! But their safety would have been better addressed by properly identifying all of the threats going up against them. And it's not like the kid had any shortage of clones.

So, properly chastened, all of the Kitsune Clan were now scouring the town for additional information. Everyone was doing it, not just Naruto, and they were not only concerned about stuff pertaining to the resets, but also for potential use later on, after they hopefully got out of the loop.

Now they could go way out on limbs and not suffer the consequences. After they got out, that would no longer be the case.

Everybody had a clone or two devoted to that, more or less all of the time. It was their hope to know the whole town in minute detail before they called an end to the resets, as that sort of knowledge would be what enabled them to put a stop to the deaths occurring during the invasions and such.

Temari was also insisting they make some trips out to Sand.

It was her home town, and only a three day walk away. It ought to be easy to get there, and that could open up whole new things to do. Not only could they be performing the same data gathering there as here, but there were skills at use in Sand that were not to be found in Leaf.

Their weaponsmiths were generally better, for one thing, and that had both Tenten and Yugao all googly-eyed and eager. Once Naruto had learned those smithing techniques, then all of their clan's equipment would be better.

So those trips were definitely on the agenda. And not just to Sand, but to all of the ninja villages within reach, both major and minor.

"Why aren't we out of this?" Yugao, who was still new to the whole reset scene, groused from beside her. "Everything gets so confusing. Some days I have no idea if they are tomorrow or yesterday. We should call an end to the whole thing. It's clear these are linked to Naruto's progress though the exam - we should just get him to pass!"

From where she was standing beside her, Anko looked out on the training ground again and resumed her smirk.

"Ino, Ayame and Hana all agree with you," she told the jonin. "They've grown distant from their families, and they hate that."

"But then, why don't we just get out?" Yugao pled. "My boyfriend..." she stopped herself from admitting how fast the man was becoming boring.

"Exactly, you're boyfriend," Anko agreed. "That's Tsunade's reason. She says that we have here a priceless opportunity for medical research. All sorts of things that are too risky to be ethical can be tried out here without doing any permanent harm to anyone. The research benefits that come out of trying longshot procedures help us learn how to do things, and not just do them, but do them well, even get fully mastered, things like curing Hayate's cough. If not for these time loops, that never would have happened. So she wants to draw these out until we've completely conquered a few of the more pressing ailments around."

"Yes, but she's a medic, of course she'd want that!" Yugao snapped, not feeling at all kind over such an ambition. What good was her boyfriend's health if she didn't want him as her boyfriend for much longer?

"And then there's Tenten's reason," Anko continued. "The girl's got a point in that, until we've got our own fighting style, we'll never be counted among the great clans. So she's working like a trooper to get the rest organized in trying out her ideas, and you've got to admit their progress."

Yugao sighed. Yes she had to admit that. In fact, that thought brought her eyes out over to the training field.

Out there on the grounds stood over a hundred clones, over a dozen from each member of the Kitsune Clan. Now normally one practiced with swords using blunted or even wooden weapons, as that way one could limit painful accidents. But it also led to bad habits that could, and often did, get novice sword users killed in their first few real fights, before they ironed those out.

Naruto's idea had been plain, yet simple: Using Shadow Clones to practice the moves and do all of the sparring using real swords. It didn't hurt as much as getting a real wound when a clone got destroyed, but it did teach real skills in an effective way, and without any of the bad habits that usually crept in. The fact that the real people were resting in clumps around the field meant that they could create new clones at need, so long as their chakra held out, at any rate. But the new clones got created from a fully rested state, so the sheer amount of training they could get in during one day was simply unreal.

Even without the resets, they'd have been shooting up the skill ladder at a very impressive pace. As it was, Konoha was going to have a crop of master rank swordsgirls (and one swordsman) appearing out of nowhere. Well, near masters, at any rate. The only thing preventing them all from becoming full masters was the lack of physical changes due to their training.

One's effectiveness at armed combat, martial arts, or any kind of fighting, even flinging about ninjutsu techniques, was really determined on the base level by power and speed, and for them those were not, could not, change during the resets. However, one's basic ability, or raw talent, got multiplied by the skill you'd developed.

One could teach a certain amount of skill in organized training, and they did so. Everybody taught their raw genin what they could to get them off to a good start. But what really forged that into something usable was the experience in real life application that came after the teachers had done all they could for you.

And, right now, the Kitsune Clan could go out and get all of the experience they wanted simply by fighting in the chunin exams, or the later invasion, and take on their choice of a wide range of opponents as they did so. And it was exactly that type of experience that made ninja deadly.

Most didn't survive to get it, but thanks to the resets, death was not much of a blockage to them. So they could go ahead and take those risks and learn from the lessons they could from them anyway.

It was going to lead to them being among the most deadly sword users in history... and Tenten was doing the Exact Same Thing to refine that new martial art she was working on, with others' help.

In a short while, they were going to be very dangerous indeed.

And, one had to admit the benefit of having an S-ranked missing ninja to be your sparring opponent, as well. Orochimaru DID enter the village and they DID seek him out to get opportunities to fight him. Most of the time he simply played with them. Then, if they pressed him hard enough he'd wipe them out almost casually.

But there was nothing like that for showing you your weaknesses.

And, without that ability to die, over and over, pushing yourself in real combat situations, they'd be decades perfecting their style otherwise.

"So, once we get those fighting styles down and cured every disease in Konoha, do we get out then?" Yugao asked, sighing.

"Not yet, girl." Anko gave her a nasty grin. "There's also MY reason! Over a dozen years ago Konoha let Orochimaru go, when we could've killed him. Old man Sarutobi had that guy dead to rights, caught in the act of committing his horrible crimes. But the old guy couldn't bear to strike at his favorite student, so he let him go."

Anko's face was blank. "Back then old Snake Face was much weaker than he is now. Sarutobi could've killed him. Arashi could've killed him. Back then we had Kakashi's dad, so the White Fang of Konoha could've killed him! Also, Roachy-chan didn't have any real advantages over his teammates, so we had the other two sannin, and they were closely enough matched that, given a trivial amount of support, either one of those could've killed him. And that isn't the whole list, there are others who, between them, almost surely could have destroyed the pale faced traitor."

Anko was now gripping a kunai, and Yugao was able to tell how much this angered her. "Put all of the ninja we once had together, and it would've have been a trivial thing for them to have destroyed Orochimaru! But instead, the soft-hearted old fool let him go. So now that traitor we could've killed so easily is back, and now the tables are turned. WE'VE gotten weaker while HE has gotten stronger! So we, who could've killed him so EASILY before, are now in danger from him, as his plan comes real close to destroying Konoha!"

That man's former apprentice drew in a deep breath, and looked steadily over to the new girl, stating clearly, "No more. No more second chances for that freak. He turned his back on us and everything we stand for. We let him go, and he came back to kill us. That's it. No more chances for him to get it right next time. Without Naruto's little accident with time, Orochimaru would have killed our Hokage and devastated the town, while cutting our ninja forces down sharply and severely weakening our one, major allied village. That's too close. He doesn't get another chance so he could get it right next time. We don't leave these resets until we know how to kill him. He's got to be dead and decaying in his grave before I'll let Naruto graduate!"

Yugao blinked as her companion got up and angrily stomped off.

"Watch your hands!" the Yugao clone out on the practice field called out to the students she was teaching, ignorant of this little dialog on the sidelines. "You can't hold a sword if you don't have any hands! And they are a cheap, easy to strike, low risk target if you aren't more careful of them!"

Proving her point, she almost casually swept off the fingers of an Ino clone, causing that girl's shadow construct to explode into a cloud of smoke.

----

Ayame lowered herself on a line of ninja wire to where she could just barely see past the upper lip of the open window. Raising the blowgun to her lips, she exhaled sharply, and the woman within that room crumpled as the sleep powders did their work.

Quickly slipping inside and using swift, economical motions, she stripped the woman out of her daytime clothes and put her back in her sleepwear before placing the woman back into bed and putting on her clothes herself. Then, using a Shapechange to look identical to the woman she'd just knocked out, she left that bedroom by the inside door and called out, "I'm ready for the day, daddy!"

Having stealthily observed her target's routine, she knew all of her lines and schedule for the day.

The girl's father looked up from where he was entering the kitchen himself and smiled. "Just in time, my little dumpling. You ready to learn how to bake with daddy today?"

"Sure, daddy! I'm ready!" Ayame in the little girl disguise called out.

"Good!" the man replied, reaching for a flour bucket. "Help me start these sweet rolls."

As she was outwardly rushing to help, inwardly Ayame grinned in triumph. The ramen chef's daughter was going to become the best cook in Konoha, even if she had to resort to her husband's methods to do it!

----

Naruto watched where Jiraiya quivered under the Sexy Paradise illusion. The old man would never teach him anything until he'd gotten some reason to, but after having been under that illusion once, he'd literally teach him anything he knew to go under it again.

So the boy's knowledge of seals was really taking off -- which, in some ways that was odd, as the rest of his life was turning and twisting around.

Take his lifelong goal as an example.

Naruto realized that the satisfaction he'd always imagined would come out of being Hokage, he already had. And it hadn't come out of any of the goals he'd been told were cool, or important. No. All of the happiness now in his life came out of the relationships he'd formed with his angels. Being loved and respected had completely filled that empty hole in his life.

He no longer felt any desire to be Hokage, as that would only take time away from things he'd rather be doing, and everything he once thought he'd get out of that role, he already had.

Of course, considering Orochimaru and those cloud garbed underpants-less guys, along with other threats he could presume were out there, Naruto still wanted and felt he needed the skills to be Hokage.

It was just the hat that no longer had any interest for him.

Of course, "Dangerous are the underpants-less ones," was Ino's favorite statement to make these days, always spoken in ominous whispers. And, silly as it was, she had a point. According to Sound information fed through Kin, those Akatsuki guys needed demon containers, so they would be coming after Naruto no matter what rank he held.

The Kitsune Clan had been having enough trouble defeating ONE S-rank ninja coming after Konoha, and that was with near infinite opportunities to get it right. The thought of nine of them coming after Naruto specifically was downright chilling, and worse yet, they hadn't made much of an appearance during these time loops, so there was little opportunity to learn their weaknesses or how to fight against them.

Itachi was an exception, as they knew of a pattern that made him come to town. So, sadly for Sasuke, he was going to be outed as a poo-wielder many times in the resets to come, as the clan HAD to have more information on Itachi, how he fought and how they might get him to die, and the most reliable way they had to get him was to have Sasuke revealed as this great scatological wonder, so his older brother would come to town and kill him.

Then the clan could ambush him with small clone armies, lose, and repeat a few times, learning more about him and his fighting style each time.

Of course, to really mine that for information, they really ought to have some form of defense against that illusion technique Itachi was so fond of, as they didn't get much data out of being caught in three day illusions with the amazing missing ninja sticking a sword through them.

And that was a big part of what brought Naruto back to Jiraiya over and over again, as he was convinced there really ought to be a seal array that could be developed to counter that illusion before it was even cast.

In order to take over your mind and turn it into his own personal playground Itachi had to using some form of energy, after all, probably mental, but the direction, blocking and manipulation of energy was what seals DID! So, if they could learn how to craft a seal that could catch hold of Itachi's illusion before it caught hold of them, they could theoretically turn it back on him, or use it to trap his body, or manipulate it in other ways to their advantage.

Even just being immune to the whole "hold still while I torture, then kill you" aspect of that would be nice. Itachi relied way too much on that illusion of his for it not to weaken his style to be deprived of it.

And so Naruto wanted even more than ever to expand what he knew of seals.

----  
Author's Notes:

Well, they changed the log-in procedure on this site to where it is absolutely impossible for me to access my account or upload things from the one computer I actually own. So that has led to some delays as I've had to make other arrangements to get any chapters posted.

Theme of the story should be changing back to a more active tone, as now that the relationships are more or less established and nominally explored we can leave those to go on to other things.

Of course, we HAD to take some time to explore those, as for Naruto, those were the real paydirt of this whole experience, and they didn't make any sense unless firmly established. I didn't want to make him powerful yet lonely or any of those other errors that often creep in, like the relationships being too shallow or meaning nothing.

Power doesn't make someone happy. The Naruto world is chock full of powerful ninja who aren't happy with their lives. But true bonding takes time, so I had to spend some letting them do it.

My intent now is to go back to him defeating obstacles and learning things.


	44. Chapter 44

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Four

by Lionheart

----

Two women stood on a rooftop overlooking the Hyuga compound, the wind whipping their hair.

"Are you certain this is the only way?" Shizune asked her mentor.

Tsunade nodded decisively. "Absolutely positive. She just doesn't learn like a human does. No matter how hard I try to teach her, she doesn't pick it up. I even had Naruto order her to try, and she suffers, giving it her best shot but failing anyway. No, by myself I can't teach her. But, having observed Naruto do this on rabbits and other animals, it should work."

"So, Vicky..." Shizune trailed off, looking mournfully over to the Hyuga compound.

No where near comfortable treating one of the most powerful known demons in existence like a pet, the girls had taken to calling the Kyubi, Vicky, kind of short for vixen, but not too far off from Naruto's nickname for her of Fluffy. It was just more respectful, and people in town didn't look at them odd when they called her that name out in public. So, when she was in human form, that's what she got called.

They'd had some bad experiences getting caught calling her Kyubi. The freak outs had been massive and intense.

The statement of, "So, Kyubi, what do you think?" was never popular, and often followed by screams.

Shaking her head, Shizune completed her statement. "Naruto isn't going to be happy with this."

"Neither am I, but I see no other way." The Slug Sannin admitted heavily before she drew in a great sigh. "C'mon, let's get the rest of the Angels convinced. Once we get all of them converted to the necessity of the idea, Naruto will go along. He always does."

"Right." Shizune nodded, before dimpling and trying to smile. "Hey! It's not like they won't get better, right?"

Tsunade admitted of a sad grin herself. "Yes, that's one thing these resets are good for. Heaven knows I'd never consider anything like this without 'em."

Later that night Naruto released the Kyubi's real form out from behind her seal, directly on top of the Hyuga compound, once everyone was inside. The demon was still very weak, not yet fully recovered from her near death after having fallen afoul of her sworn oath to destroy Naruto's enemies long ago. In fact, by her own estimation, the Kyubi still fought at somewhat less than one tails worth of effectiveness.

Still, that was more than enough to wipe out one sleepy clan, caught by surprise.

Standing larger than the compound, the released Kyubi (Vicky was her name for human form, which this most certainly wasn't, and they did want to avoid confusing them lest they call her by the wrong name at the wrong time) set about breaking apart buildings and devouring that clan immediately.

It was the only way they knew of to teach her the Hyuga bloodline.

Tsunade had determined that, the Kyubi, being a demon, had a mind that worked in different ways from humans, and she honestly couldn't learn in ways they found comfortable. So, since Naruto was able to learn the forms of animals for copying and shifting to by devouring them, and he'd gained that ability from her 'decorations', they assumed that the Kyubi memorized forms the same way.

And the precious Hyuga bloodline was something that made up their forms.

The reason the demoness hadn't memorized all of the bloodlines in the world this way was that it required a rather large number of the same type of thing to be devoured at the same time for a demon on her scale to even notice. And the few times that had happened in her past, she hadn't been paying any attention, not deeming what she was eating important.

So, on Naruto's orders, having been convinced by his wives (including a stone faced Hinata), the Kyubi broke forth and devoured the entire Hyuga clan like an anteater breaking into a termite mound.

Hinata was the obvious exception. Nobody thought of her as a Hyuga anyway, as she was the founding wife of the Kitsune Clan.

There weren't enough Uchihas in existence to get the Sharingan the same way. Not like any of them were inclined to try, as they found the whole thing distasteful to an extreme. In fact, those in the reset stayed very far away so they didn't have to watch as the Kyubi was first released, then fed, which turned into a battle, that ended when she was defeated by Sarutobi using that sealing technique again.

With the Hokage dead, and mass portions of the town destroyed, the counsel called the chunin exams off and they reset the next morning, still feeling very guilty about what they'd done, and determined not to do it again.

Most were actively resolving to make it up to that clan, somehow.

But still, the Kyubi very sheepishly added the Hyuga's acquired bloodline to the rest of her 'decorations' on the Kitsune Clan, having been successful.

Only this modification they ended up hiding, so instead of blank, white pupil-less eyes, they had their normal eye colors, with pupils. And the veins on their temples didn't bulge outrageously when they activated it, the increased blood flow required being run along more internal lines.

A minor cosmetic effect, but a very important one for concealing their new advantages. And concealing them avoided all sorts of uncomfortable questions. Toward that purpose, Hinata elected to have her own natural eye color shifted from Hyuga white to match Naruto's beautiful cerulean blue, and while she was at it her hair shifted to the same shade of blue, adjusted at the follicles so it would always grow that way.

It was their hope that by doing so they could avoid all future trouble with the Hyuga clan insisting on putting a Caged Bird seal on her, as they could state, with some accuracy, that their own bloodline powers had overridden Hinata's.

She would disguise herself under various forms of transformation as needed. Mostly, however, her contact with her home clan was limited to leaving that compound on mornings just after a new reset, and never going back until the next reset had her waking up in her bed there again.

They'd never been terribly kind to her.

Unfortunately, while it'd been their intention to disguise their newly acquired bloodline powers completely, they did not pull it off with complete success. The Kyubi only knew the way the Hyuga's were, and after devouring a clan full of them could have copied that over directly, no problem, but it would have had no changes at all from the original. So Tsunade had worked with her exhaustively to say, "shift this here, drop this trait there, change this so it works differently," etc. And, given the Kyubi's handicap, it'd been a miracle how much success they'd had.

The one thing that had been overlooked was the irises of the eyes turning white whenever the special vision powers were activated. So there was still a telltale of that portion of their newly expanded bloodline powers being in use.

Considering that the powers, once added to the bloodline, would be fixed and not subject to change, so there was no experimenting possible to get it just right, it was remarkable that things worked as well as they did.

----

"Da... d... Dad?" Naruto stammered out, tremulously.

The Fourth Hokage offered no response.

Looking over to see Tsunade, who was struggling with her own feelings over her similarly unresponsive brother, he shifted his desperate gaze to Shizune, who was currently struggling with the Impure Resurrection technique.

"It's not really what we'd expected," the medic admitted, sweating under the strain. "He's there, but at the same time he's not. It's more like a puppet technique than a person, and his contribution is more like him being on the other end of a radio and preoccupied than present. I'm sorry. I could make him talk, but it's like I'm interrupting something important on his end."

Crying tears freely, Naruto turned away from the animated corpse currently possessed by the ghost of his father and found comfort in the arms of Tsunade, who was overcome by grief over the same problem at the same time.

Those girls who'd been looking on, expecting a joyful reunion, were themselves depressed, but swept in to offer soothing words of comfort and nurturing caresses anyway.

----

One thing that really ought to have been obvious, but, being former candidate for Hokage, Orochimaru was TOUGH!!

Konoha hadn't had a weak or wimpy Hokage yet. In fact, all those that had held the spot so far were legendary ninja even after their times had passed. Most didn't realize just how much work that took, or what kind of successes that required, to be remembered even after you were no longer a threat.

Ninja were, by and large, a very practical sort of people, far too preoccupied by things that might actually kill them, or acquiring ways to kill others, to be much bothered by sentimental sorts of history.

You had to really make an impression on them for any sort of shinobi to recall you for long after you'd ceased to be a danger to them.

Orochimaru had been seriously considered for the position of Hokage, and it had NOT been any lack of talent, drive or effectiveness that got him passed over for the job. He'd had all of the skills required.

No, he'd gotten turned down for psychological reasons. But being a psycho didn't make him any less dangerous of a ninja.

And he'd been on a ceaseless quest since then, tirelessly acquiring more and more power long after his competitors for that position had either gone to seed or died off. So his power levels had only been increasing since the time he'd been thought a viable Hokage candidate.

It would take an Uchiha obsessed fangirl to possess such a wasted sense of judgment as to believe that wasn't going to make for a very, very nasty ninja! Having STARTED from Kage-level, and only improved since then... Anko was correct to fear him, as in a few more years he ought to be truly unstoppable.

He came awfully close as it was.

"Spiraling Sphere!!"

Orochimaru laughed as his chest got destroyed by the Impure Resurrected Fourth Hokage's legendary attack bored a hole through the Snake Sannin's chest and converted his torso to ribbons of bone and flesh.

"Kukukuku!!" Orochimaru laughed, despite no longer having lungs to do so, collapsing in a heap of empty skin as another, whole hale and healthy of him sprang out of the discarded lower body.

"Blast!" Anko shouted, charging her former master and almost but not quite hitting him with a Thousand Birds technique. The old ninja almost lazily dodged the rapidly striking point of her tail, in addition to all of her other attacks. "I had no idea the old pervert had perfected the Skin Shedding technique! Physical Damage just..."

"Drill Fangs!"

Anko was pierced by two streams of flying, razor sharp snake fangs spinning fast and spraying poison as they went.

Tsunade dropped her former teammate, crushing his spine to powder with her fist as he concentrated on the technique that took Anko down, only to reveal that what she'd just slain was a corpse animated by the Dead Soul technique and used to impersonate Orochimaru, who must've gone elsewhere after he'd last saved his life by shedding his skin.

Then the group heard the ominous words, "Maw of the Underworld."

Orochimaru reacted to whatever level of force attacked him. When set upon by old teammates, dead Hokages, and a cluster of highly skilled chunin and jonin, he accepted this as a legitimate threat on his life and responded with the big guns, rather than the teasing and mocking he gave when he felt safe.

A chuck of the Forest of Death that seemed almost a kilometer across fell into a sudden pit of blackness, and they knew no more before the reset.

----

"Aaaaargh!!"

As Kurenai was getting some hot and heavy lip action from Naruto up on the top of the Hokage Tower, in full view of the entire town, Yugao groused down below. "When she said I'd have to take over 'shielding their activities from the village', she did NOT say she'd be personally setting out to MAKE THAT MORE DIFFICULT!!"

The swordswoman clenched her fist, vein throbbing on her forehead, before going off to start a rumor that Naruto's teammate Sakura had made a bet with Naruto that he wouldn't kiss her if she was under a Transformation to look like a much older woman.

The things they made her do to keep the town from thinking Kurenai was a stinking pedophile! Heck, mentally, the BRAT was probably older than she was! But would the village understand that? No. So why did they keep MAKING OUT IN PUBLIC?!?

"Do you think we should tell her?" Ayame asked Hana, as they both watched the ticked-off woman stalk away.

"That Kurenai wants public recognition because Asuma never gave her any?" Hana replied. "Or that Ino made a bet with her that they wouldn't make out on top of the Hokage Tower?"

"I was thinking Anko's bet that, since the 'den mother' slot is all burdens and virtually no benefit, that no one could handle it for more than a hundred resets. And that if Yugao didn't snap in fifty or so Anko would do whatever embarrassing thing she wanted. Once." The ramen chef's daughter offered.

"No." Hana disagreed, grinning. "Kurenai would love to see her old friend forced to make a pass at Jiraiya. So she'd actually like Yugao to hold out longer. Her making out on top of the tower has nothing to do with that bet."

Ayame folded her arms primly. "Making passes at known perverts goes well beyond embarrassing, so that's out of bounds for the bet. Anko only put herself up for public shame, not a near certainty of rape!"

Hana thought about it, then agreed. "Okay, you're right. That's out of bounds. Sorry. So, considering what she once dressed like, being made to run streaking through town might not embarrass her. So what would?"

Both women thought for a long moment about Anko's former usual clothing style, and looked at each other, speechless, unable to come up with anything.

----

"Yeah, I've been learning TONS of seals!" Naruto boasted proudly in response to a question concerning his progress.

"Really? To do what?" Kin asked politely.

"Uh," Naruto froze in that position, stuck in mid-gloat, before he sobered, settling into a thinking pose. "You know? To be honest, the old pervert hasn't ever covered practical applications for most of what he's been teaching me. It's all wild stuff and theories."

"So, could you create a better storage seal?" she asked politely.

"Well, maybe not better," the boy considered. "But I sure know a ton of ways to modify things like that now."

"Modify, like how?" Tenten raised her head, suddenly interested.

By way of answer, Naruto grabbed a small take-out box from a favorite restaurant whose cuisine Ayame had not yet mastered, scribing a quick seal on its bottom, then flipped it back upright. Then, to the amazed gazes of all, he grabbed one of the spear and chain combo weapons Ino had just finished practicing with and lowered it into the tiny box, hand over hand, spear first and then the chain, until it had all disappeared.

Jaws were dropping all around that chamber.

"N... n... Naruto!" Tsunade shouted, coming over to grab him quick. "Why didn't you TELL US you could make a seal like that!!?!"

"Feh, it's pretty easy. I didn't think it was all that special." He shrugged.

"Special? SPECIAL??" She shrieked. "You lowered that weapon like you were testing the depth of a WELL and it never hit BOTTOM! And that box is only two inches deep!"

"Down dear," Hana put a hand on her elder's shoulder, having realized some while ago that the legendary medic had too unstable a temper to be a proper Alpha, and so having retaken that role upon herself. Bending over to where she could look him in the eye, she asked, "Naruto, do you not realize how special what you've done is?"

The boy innocently shook his head in confusion.

Standing up, the clan heiress touched her head in frustration. It would not do to go raring off to kill everyone who had ever taught, or FAILED to teach (which was the point aggravating her here), Naruto in the ninja academy.

Such conduct was unbecoming of an Alpha. If she was going to do it, that was something she'd had to lead the whole group out on.

Instead, she chose to remedy the problem. Vengeance against those responsible could come later.

"Kurenai dear?"

"I keep forgetting how many blind spots you've still got in your education," the red eyed jonin rose from up off of her seat, striding over seductively to the boy she had married, before drawing a breath to say, "Naruto, I know you studied exhaustively under Iruka during this loop, but there are reasons why those classes have more than one teacher. People forget things, even obvious ones, entirely without meaning to. Two people are significantly less likely to both forget the same pieces of critical information."

The jonin paused before admitting, "And really, the circumstances we are in, while ideal for some purposes, also limit the amount of varieties we get our experiences in, so some weaknesses or blind spots don't show up as much."

"Oh?" Tenten challenged her slightly. "We've fought with all kinds of weapons against all types of ninja. Just what sorts of experience aren't we getting?"

"Anything long term, for one," Kurenai answered her without ire. "Most of the really sucky bits of missions come after you've been on them for a few weeks. Things like being unable to bathe properly, or eat hot meals really suck morale, and can make for increased fatigue, dangers of infection of wounds or just disease. You don't know what a hard mission is until you're deep in enemy territory, filthy and cold, then come down sick with fevers. Though I know we don't advertise it, we've lost quite a few ninja to sickness while on long term field missions. It's not just wounds that kill."

"Also, your awareness sharpens as you go out on dangerous missions," Kin added her support to Kurenai. "Being here... our awareness actually dulls, as we know so much of what's going on we stop paying so much attention."

"I agree. But before we get too far off on a tangent," Hana interrupted, as she turned the group's attention back to their mutual husband. "Naruto, how much water does a person require to survive?"

"A gallon a day to drink, two or three in hot climates like Sand, and that's not counting other purposes, like wash water for yourself, or cleaning cooking utensils," the boy responded promptly.

This was basic ninja stuff.

"And yet we still lose ninja to dehydration or heat exhaustion. Why do you suppose that is?" the Inuzuka clan heiress (who was going to have to find time someday to tell Kiba that was now his job, as she was taking over another clan) pressed, hoping he'd think that over. He was getting pretty good at that lately, but you never could tell when the last shreds of his old, mentally lazy ways would show up.

"Oh, that's easy!" the boy chirped, kicking back and putting his arms behind his fox-eared head. "They get lazy, or don't think. Temari says that you've got to be sipping constantly to stay healthy in desert heat, and once the water in their canteen runs out, it's not convenient or handy to pull another one out of your storage seals! So they put it off, and don't quite as much water as they need, steadily falling behind, until all of a sudden the little ways they were shorting themselves add up to a major problem."

"People also forget things. It happens all of the time," Anko added. "You get used to finding your water in streams, and you don't think you need it when you go someplace that doesn't have those. You'll find chunin, or even a few jonin, out there who simply don't think to carry water, even on desert runs."

"Using storage seals to carry extra water can also be dangerous," Temari posed an addition. "Seals make a distinct surge of chakra that is detectable by most ninja, some train to detect that distinct pulse at a considerable distance. Most of the guards around the village of Sand have learned to do it, actually, as it is one of the best ways to detect incoming ninja trying to sneak across the surrounding sands. Canteens only hold about a quart, four quarts to the gallon, three gallons a day, times however many people you have in a group, and most incoming parties are unsealing new canteens of water all of the time. It makes them real easy to track."

"People can detect chakra?" Naruto blinked, and the girls there all palmed their faces in their hands.

"Sometime, I swear I'm going to go murder all those so-called 'teachers' at that academy. I swear I will," Anko mumbled into her hands.

"I'll help," Ino muttered alongside of her, arms folded in anger. "That was my education they sabotaged too. They couldn't always send him away to beat erasers or to see the principal, so they had to leave tons of stuff out of the normal lessons to keep him this ignorant. I can't believe how weak a ninja I was until this whole reset business started. Our classmates who didn't have outside instruction from belonging to clans didn't have a chance."

"That explains quite a few things, actually," Tsunade nodded thoughtfully, while Tenten just fumed.

Ever-practical Shizune merely addressed the immediate problem to hand by laying a hand on the boy's shoulder and saying, "Yes, Naruto, most ninja can feel others using chakra. It's alot like feeling wind on your face, really. You can tell there was something there, and a bit of where it came from, and how strong, but you really have to train hand to learn much more than that."

"That's why Roachy-chan was able to detect my sentries!" The boy slapped a fist into his hand in discovery. "All of the time I'd try to spy on him, he knew where I had clones, even when I had them disguised! I put them all over the places where I knew he'd be, and he'd just avoid them, like he knew where they were!"

The girls all looked at each other seriously. "Yes, Naruto, that sounds likely." Shizune told him, rubbing at the bridge of her nose before hugging him. "And while most of us can only detect chakra that is in use, like storage seals being activated or battle techniques fired, or whatnot, he is exactly the sort of person who would train until he could sense even more than that. I don't know how much he could or couldn't do, obviously, but you've always had so very much chakra that it seems reasonable he could detect you even when you were not using it, if he could detect anyone in that state."

Naruto was scratching his chin. "But the ANBU couldn't catch me, because most of them were using jutsu just to follow along. So they were, in effect, throwing up a smoke screen where there was so MUCH chakra being used, they could never find me!"

"Besides, you never did use much chakra to dodge them," Ino added, proud of him, in her way.

"At first I couldn't. I didn't know how. But later on I never had to," the boy sheepishly admitted, before turning serious. "So, how do you hide from guys who sense your chakra?"

The girls all face-faulted, all save one.

"How did you guys survive as a ninja country if your teachers were willing to shoot an entire generation of shinobi in the foot just to spite Naruto?" Temari asked, quite angrily. "That's a BASIC skill! It's like not being able to READ!!"

"Uhh, they didn't teach me that, either," Naruto admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Not until the resets started did I convince Iruka to really show me how."

"Right. That's it. They die." The Sand Maiden seized hold of a sword and started to walk out of the room.

Most of those present decided to join her.

Naruto was left blinking in shock while Hana stayed behind to explain. "The storage seal you showed us is very special, Naruto. Most seals are either 'on' or 'off', with the items either fully contained or not at all, and they make a pulse each time something gets taken in or out. Yours made no pulse at all that we could detect, and here we all were in the same room!"

"But what difference does that make?" Naruto rubbed his head.

Hana decided to try another route, seeing as she was coming up against one of those blind spots the boy hadn't yet eliminated himself. "Dear, tell me, how much water could you put in a canteen with one of your seals?"

The boy carelessly shrugged. "A couple hundred gallons, easy."

"So, a several month supply, even in hot desert terrain," Hana mused thoughtfully, before adding, "So, how many canteens would a patrol need?"

Suddenly the blond's eyes widened.

"Yes." Hana nodded, glad to have gotten through. "Now you see. If each one in a patrol had a canteen like you could make, they would only need one each. So they wouldn't be opening up storage seals all of the time, so those ninja around the village of Sand Temari just told us of would be unable to track you coming in. Also, like you said before, it's just inconvenient to be opening up storage seals for new canteens all of the time, so people get busy or don't bother, and we get cases of dehydration or heat stroke as people don't drink enough or often enough. This would fix that, as the one canteen they had on their belts could stay full for months."

Naruto was nodding.

Hana was glad to have overcome one of his remaining blind patches. "So, tell me about Tenten's Rising Twin Dragons technique, a short summary only, please."

Raising his eyebrows, confused at what she wanted, the boy simply stated, "She jumps up in the air, unseals hundreds of weapons out of two scrolls, and throws them at her enemies."

Again, Hana nodded, then asked, "Why does she need the scrolls?"

"To store things! It'd weigh hundreds of pounds if she..." he stopped.

Hana was grinning, hefting the takeout box. "But this doesn't weigh any more than the paper box that made it up." She turned it over and the spear fell out, making a clatter as it and its chain wound up in a pile on the floor. "So, if Tenten, or all of us, were to have your seals on our shuriken pouches, we could still have those hundreds of pounds of weapons, but could use them even faster as we wouldn't be bothered with the delay caused by clumsy scrolls."

----  
Author's Notes:

Only got about halfway through the seal stuff before I had to call it for already having gone over budget. On the PLUS side, everyone seems to be passed the major illnesses, and the interminal shed project that was soaking up so much free time now seems to be at last completed.

This could be a good week for getting back to a more sprightly update schedule. Let's hope so, eh?


	45. Chapter 45

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Five

by Lionheart

----

Naruto looked around the clan compound. What had formerly been he Uchiha estate was bustling with activity.

Most of it was him, of course.

They had a busy day. As the first morning of a new reset there was so much to be done it was almost scary. Scary, that was, until it became routine.

It took a lot of work to support his wives in the manner to which they had become accustomed.

Over there in the smithies clones were busily working away. Making things the ordinary way just required way too much time, anymore, even with the near-infinite manpower at his disposal, so they were using crafting techniques built on the same concepts and principles as ninja powers, molding chakra to achieve effects in seconds instead of hours.

He'd started on this principle when he'd first begun to work titanium, but the cat had been let out of the bag, so to speak. Once he'd started using his own specially created, unique jutsu to craft one thing, it had been natural, unavoidable even, to move on to doing the same with others.

But, while crafting something, say a suit of armor, directly out of raw materials was possible, he found he got an inferior result that way. So, out there in those smithies, clones of Naruto were working on mixing alloys that were dang near unbreakable up to chunin levels of strength, to making welds, cutting, shaping, polishing and finishing out suits of armor, and the typical wide assortments of weapons, to which seals would then be added.

There were quite a variety of ninja tools under construction there, from wire and shuriken to caltrops and swords and on and on. Nor were they working on that alone. They were also producing delicate chandeliers for the house, and glassware and tableware and pottery of all shapes and descriptions for using to decorate the old place.

Cloth goods of all varieties were also in production, clones using handseals and chakra techniques to collect fibers out of the surrounding forests, weave those into stunningly beautiful fabrics, which they then turned into plain or exotic garments, bed linens, towels, curtains, rugs and tapestries, using more specially created tailoring jutsu.

Those outfits ranged across entire wardrobes, and included not only the seals he'd created for making the outfits self-adjusting to growing young bodies, mirroring a user's chakra so they could mimic a body's developments, but whole new sets of useful or otherwise convenient seals.

Seals to keep clothes, curtains and bed-linens clean had been an obvious next step up from simply always fitting right. And from there it had been an easy step to creating clothes that would resist tearing, and the experiments to do that had yielded results more positive than he ever would've imagined at first. In short order they'd gone from a "Wouldn't it be neat if we could get this delicate lace to stop tearing?" all of the way up to, "Gosh, who would've guessed that so simple a seal would make this underwear as strong as mesh ninja armor?"

But there was a lot to be said for clothing that looked normal (or fabulous, as situations called for) but that could stop blows better than an ANBU vest. He was VERY busy adapting those to strengthen the clan's armor to even tougher levels, as it would be nice to stand up to more of the treatment one received in the punishing environment of ninja combat.

Then there were also seals, probably Naruto's pride and joy, that created an internal layer of opaque chakra within the clothes themselves that would put a stop to special visual powers.

The Hyuga's White Eyes couldn't see through it and the Sharingan couldn't copy or predict any movements of a person wearing it, making both of those prized bloodlines utterly useless for fighting against a person wearing it.

That seal array DESERVED to be a pride and joy!

Unfortunately, they weren't yet finished with final touches. As it was, the seals blocked penetrating chakra sight perfectly, but he hadn't yet made a way that could not only do that, but that also wouldn't interfere with the use of chakra techniques by the person wearing it.

As it was, though, it made for perfect jumpsuits to grant Lee and Gai the ability to stomp on any Sharingan or White Eye users who deserved it. Even though Naruto could, and often DID, cure Lee's coils and teach him a years worth of chakra techniques in two minutes, the enthusiastic fellow genin did well enough even without them that, garbed in sealed clothes, he became deadly to those two major bloodline users, and he could smack Neji around like a white-eyed racquetball.

And Naruto was getting closer to having a perfect version of those seals all of the time, one that did not interrupt the user's chakra, but that blocked all of those special sight powers completely.

They were also making jewelry, something he felt far more critical than either the combat gear or the housewares, and that wasn't because his wives all thought his creations of jewels and precious metal laces were pretty (although, privately, he did admit that was a factor, albeit a small one). No, most of what he was doing he'd gotten started on by having the wedding rings of his wives store their outfits for them.

That was a concept that just begged to be built upon.

Tsunade had finally gotten around to explaining to him the secrets behind her own special seals - both of them: the one that sustained her permanent illusion (a disguise she no longer needed to look young), and the one storing chakra that could be released in a burst to regenerate her instantly (and whose side effects had once aged her prematurely).

Youth and regeneration they already had out of their bloodline, so he learned them just on general principles to learn everything he could. But what really spiked his interest was the less celebrated support elements of each seal.

Naruto was currently designing jewelry that could store large amounts of chakra more or less permanently, gathered in tiny amounts over time and released either partially or all at once to refuel the wearer's reserves. So that his Angels, who had large chakra reserves but no where near close to his own, could throw large amounts of costly jutsu for much longer.

It was groundbreaking. It could change shinobi combat forever.

Chakra was the life and soul of shinobi combat. It didn't matter if what they used were illusions, wall walking or high power jutsu, they all used chakra, and when that ran out a ninja was dead, out of options and unable to maneuver, much less fight effectively.

Simply put, as a general rule, the more chakra you had the more dangerous and effective a ninja you could be, and the ability to restore chakra reserves from batteries made stuff possible that could never be risked otherwise, allowing ninja to throw around potentially ten to twenty times as many jutsu before running dry, multiplying their effectiveness in the field.

And he was going to make DANG sure that secret never got out of his clan!

He'd seen enough of the Sand/Sound invasion to know how destructive ninja could be to the surrounding territory when they went to war. He didn't want just anyone being able to fling about ten to twenty times as many chakra techniques before running out, and Tsunade had been careful as she'd taught him her secrets to make it clear that certain things, her unique techniques among them, were so precious and valuable that if anything could be done to have them, there were ninja out there who'd do it.

If there was any way at all to steal these chakra batteries, they'd be stolen, and then stolen and stolen again until every ninja country had them.

At that point it wouldn't even change the balance of power. If everyone had the knowledge of how to create these seals then everyone would balance out compared to each other. The only effect it would have would be to make ninja combat that much more destructive.

The losers in that would be the non-ninja whose homes and farms got destroyed during those battles.

Of course, Naruto really had to admit to himself that the real reason he was doing this was because he couldn't stand the concept of any of his precious people being hurt, and any advantages in their possession decreased the danger they were all in. However, if everyone had it, it wasn't an advantage, so it couldn't protect them.

And he was selfish. He wanted to protect them. With every fiber of his being he yearned to be able to keep them safe from all harm that might befall them. And, if that meant keeping shinobi techniques secret, he'd put all of the brilliantly devious powers of his agile mind to work on it.

The trouble with seals was they could be copied. They were just written words and symbols, after all. You could compress a diagram from yards across to palm sized, but the whole diagram was still there, and there were a number of ways to read it despite the tiny print.

Some shinobi used extra, unnecessary bits integrated into the design to help throw off any potential copiers, but that didn't work out very well. There were few seals indeed that hadn't become general after their introduction.

Orochimaru's cursed seals were one, but they'd already broken those. There wasn't anyone in the Kitsune Clan at this point who couldn't apply, modify or remove Orochimaru's famous cursed seal. So that left the only really unique ones left in existence as Tsunade's, and those had only really ever stayed a secret because the only copies were on her and the real text of each was disguised by her permanent illusion. So, sneaking a kunoichi into a hot spring with her wouldn't help to read them. To get access, someone would have to defeat her so she could be subdued and studied in detail at length.

So far that hadn't happened. However, there had been many tries.

To invent a seal that could not be stolen, so that it could be spread about among his Angels who'd use it without risking its loss to someone else, and starting a cascade to where everyone had it, required some very devious thinking.

Fortunately, that was what Naruto could be said to be best at.

At last, it was his chakra exercises that gave him the idea, specifically the Earth typed ones. Sitting on a rock, letting his chakra ooze out into the dirt and stones below him, had taught him a great deal more about geology than just about anyone else knew. At first he didn't know much about the names other people assigned to stuff, but after a trip to the library to look up books on geology he found those out. And although there were hundreds of different types of rocks, most of them were just the same few elements organized in slightly different ways.

Quartz was the single most common element in the world's crust, making up hundreds of worthless stones. However, organized just right it made citrines and amethysts. Carbon was REALLY common, and yet put together just right it made up diamonds. Silica was just common sand, and yet from that arose beryl and, with the right coloring agents, such gems as rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topaz and onyx. Then the same element that made up plaster and concrete could also be organized differently into lovely alabaster. Limestone compressed became marble.

It was actually a simple principle, once he'd figured out that part, to use his chakra to organize minerals differently and create his own gemstones.

Of course, the worth of those stones was based not only in their beauty, but also in their rarity. So letting anyone know that he could create his own would sort of defeat the purpose, and gem prices would only plummet. They'd cost only as much as the sand he made them from.

However, the ability to create gemstones gave him a medium no one else could use as a basis for drawing seals and hiding them.

Naruto had decided that he would draw his seals in three dimensions (which required inventing a whole new branch of the sealing art to accomplish, and thus by itself virtually ensured proper security) on the INSIDE of gemstones, using tiny fracture lines and flaws as his pen and ink.

Ideally, no one would even guess they were there, but just in case he made those flaws too small to be easily found even with a jeweler's loupe (at least not in enough detail to be read), he'd also draw additional seals to cover them in a permanent illusion of a flawless stone.

Then, just in case that illusion could be found and dispelled, and some method of seeing those lines clearly enough to copy could be devised, he resolved to input not just one or two, but DOZENS of seals interweaved with each other like the links of chain, except that chain would be a three dimensional web so that even if the lines could be clearly seen the outer layers would render the inner ones indecipherable just by their presence.

Having multiple nested layers of security, they might actually be secure.

Naturally enough, it would be the unique seals on the innermost layers, while more common ones made up the outer ones. It would require very large gems to fit this in, but size was no problem to him. What really caused him worry now was finding enough things for those stones to DO to make up the outer layers of the sealing web!

He'd already got them to store themselves, vanishing if they got removed from the body of the user. They would be programmed as a final security measure to only function for a specific girl, or, he supposed, her kids.

Actually, tying it to the bloodline would probably be better, that way they could all interlace and help each other out, but he could give each jewelry set an affinity for the girl he was making it for.

Sigh. This was getting so complicated.

----

The Kitsune Clan had a happy, bustling compound filled with energy.

It also had all of the most modern ninja advances, invented by Naruto himself. A tremendous amount of work went into all of the basic supporting infrastructure behind ordinary life, and the more of him that required, the fewer of him could be training, so shortcuts of all types had begun appearing.

For example wood stoves, which were all most peasants could afford (though nobles and ninja cooked on gas or electric ranges) produced a great deal of ash during the course of their ordinary operations.

The Uchiha clan kitchens had all been gas or electric, however those services had been cut long ago, and restoring them, when the utility companies knew it was going to be the village pariah on the receiving end of those comforts, was both a diplomatic and bureaucratic nightmare, suffering delays so intense they often didn't get those services restored at all before a reset.

Wood stoves were an option, but once Naruto got tired of hauling ash his answer was to place seals across the ovens, ranges and refrigerators of those kitchens. Apply chakra and they heated or cooled as needed.

The real breakthrough came in the fact that a trivial amount of chakra, say enough to run a C-ranked fire jutsu, would run those appliances for days on end, as desired. It really wasn't any more heat than a basic fire technique, just spread out over a much longer time and given on/off controls.

Similarly with the hot water pipes. A few seals and a small amount of chakra and you could soak under a shower until you were a prune and the water would never stop being as cool or warm as you liked it.

And, it was so comfortable, his wives insisted he expand on that and they installed their own hot spring resort, with seal powered hot water pipes - A completely unnecessary luxury, as he'd long ago perfected various water techniques for cleaning oneself completely and comfortably wherever one might be.

Actually, in an effort to be nice he'd invented an entire library of small ninja grooming techniques, including everything from doing hair to nails to pedicure and cleaning teeth, all of the way up to stuff no one likes to talk about. A girl could look sparkling and gorgeous within moments of waking up.

And yet, somehow, they all preferred the personal touch. So "Day Spa Naruto" had an unceasing supply of business as he pampered and massaged his Angels.

Of course, though they didn't speak of it, they all had learned those grooming techniques. And it didn't seem to matter how nasty conditions were, they all looked gorgeous all of the time.

Central heating and air conditioning were being added, also using seals. The girls wanted marble and alabaster wherever they could get them, and it was getting to the point where it might just be easier to build his own compound rather than convert the Uchiha one to Kitsune standards.

Of course, it still came with a huge chunk of land, and he got it free, so even if he'd never found that dratted library in spite of churning it all down to bedrock, they'd keep getting this old place and fixing it up.

He'd just started to get tired of how much work it needed.

----

Kin looked at her teammates, Dosu and Zaku, and had an odd moment. For a good dozen or so resets now she'd been poisoning their tea with paralytic agents so herself and other members of the Kitsune Clan could practice the Impure Resurrection technique using them.

It's not like they would be missed, but she had a moment of doubt, wondering when their lives had stopped being important to her. Then it came to her, the Sound team had been formed out of convenience, not friendship. They'd NEVER meant much of anything to each other as people.

Well, that made this easy to do then.

She whistled merrily as she poured the paralytic powders into their breakfast tea.

----

Early reset morning, while Naruto was busy creating all of their gear and upgrading the old house, Hinata diverted from her usual projects, sending off clones to see to them, while she herself went another way.

There was a secret, hidden lab in or close to Konoha where Orochimaru made his experiments trying to give the First Hokage's bloodline ability to use wood techniques to test subjects. That lab had been sealed but not destroyed when he was driven out, and Hinata had learned of it one night when Anko had been baring her soul about why her old teacher was such scum, how it'd hurt her to be so betrayed, and what he'd done to deserve getting thrown out.

Killing lots of Konoha citizens had indeed been very bad. And while the good girl had no intention of following in his footsteps, during the long project to get her bloodline copied out to the rest of the clan, she had acquired an ambition.

Tsunade was the granddaughter of the First Hokage, but despite that she did not have his vaunted bloodline, which seemed unfair to the formerly shy girl. Those wood techniques, it had been said, had been used to build Konoha in a day, and in her opinion the village was a sadder, poorer place without them.

More importantly, at least in the immediate sense, by learning to reactivate a dormant bloodline, Hinata could perform a treatment that had NOT been done before, and so earn her status as a medical ninja in Tsunade's eyes!

It was a powerful and lofty ambition, for the humble, unwanted girl out of a hostile and disapproving family to be achieving the official recognition of one of the Legendary Sannin, in her peculiar area of specialty.

Of course, the young Hyuga heiress had already achieved all of her other life goals. She was now loved and cherished by the boy she'd loved from afar off, whose many qualities she had admired since as long as she could remember. She'd also achieved her side goals of having good friends and being a strong ninja. Under Naruto's tutelage she was even becoming an excellent cook and housekeeper because, according to their previous den mother Kurenai, "No woman can ever be complete in life if she is a failure at her gender."

So all of Naruto's Angels had arranged to be doing all of the babysitting and child care missions they could, in order to prepare for their futures. And, in the monumentally unlikely event that anything ever happened to Naruto, they all had to be able to take care of themselves and their future households.

There were a very many unhappy "Just in case" precautions that had to be taken as a family of ninjas. But, should the worst ever happen, it would be slightly better for all of them if they'd taken steps ahead of time. That was just common shinobi sense (which didn't mean that all ninja actually did it).

But, these resets would end eventually, and after that should any of them die they'd most probably stay dead, which was why they were studying medicine as well as improving their combat skills, to put any such possibility as far off as possible.

So, not only did this pursuit grant her a new goal in life, but Hinata also had to shyly admit in the heart of her soul that granting new powers to Naruto and the rest made it that much more unlikely they'd ever lose him.

Because, realistically, if she could ever awaken Tsunade's dormant bloodline abilities to use Wood techniques, it wouldn't be a moment before someone was working on how to share those out among the clan.

The doors to that great underground lab were under seals very similar to the alarm and warding seals around the Uchiha estate. But, the girls having been bypassing those for simply years to get an early start on things while the Hokage granted those lands to Naruto, it was no great effort to slip by these as well.

The interior of the lab was dark, as well as trapped. Most of those traps had been overcome by Sarutobi when the Third Hokage had found his favorite student Orochimaru doing immoral and disgusting research in here. However, being ninja, they'd reset most of those before they'd left to seal it up, as it made the whole thing that much more secure to add the original security measures, suitably modified to surprise their master should he ever try to return, on top of the new, additional security and traps they added.

Most of those had never accounted for an intruder as well outfitted to be a thief as an average member of the Kitsune Clan.

With a nose to warn her of acid jets, pits concealed under trapdoors that were full of boiling tar, able to smell the poison on hidden needles and tell her if there were any snakes, bugs or rodents present, Hinata did fairly well.

The poor girl easily sidestepped a pendulum and rotating knives her whiskers warned her about, before deciding she was tired of not finding the hidden tripwires ahead of time and activated her White Eyes.

Things got alot easier when you could see the trap mechanisms, as well as the energy of lurking seals, waiting to activate.

In record time the small girl was inside of the lab proper and reading copious project notes Orochimaru had left behind.

He'd started with basic bloodline theft and transfer techniques, of which she was by now fully familiar, but began to research the extra step and move on to where he could take bloodlines from long dead body tissue, rather than requiring a living sample. And he'd kept carefully meticulous notes on what he did and how well it worked (or didn't), hoping to be able to reproduce results on himself should he have any successes.

The Hokage's party had apparently left the lab and sealed it in disgust without ever pausing to find those papers, while she presumed Orochimaru had assumed they had been found or destroyed.

So it was that Hinata was the first one in a lifetime to find those notes and read them, discovering the work of a mad ninja who was also a genius.

----  
Author's Notes:

I received this note. If it is of interest to any of you, you may look into it. His author profile number is apparently 1362644 on i am Jesse Briceno and i am hosting the first ever "Naruto Fanfiction Reader's Choice Awards" and you have been nomimated for "Author of The Year" also your story "Chunin Day Exam" was also nomimated for "Fanfiction of The Year"... congrats and let your readers know to vote for you next week... also you do get something so no ... i would like to ask you to please promote this on your profile... thankz


	46. Chapter 46

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Six 

by Lionheart 

---- 

"So this is Sand? Well, the border anyway?" 

"Really? What gave you that idea?" Temari joked, as they all looked out over a line where trees stopped and desert began. 

Borders like this are chosen, as often as not, by natural boundaries as much as by political concerns or anything else. Fire was a very wet country to have so many trees, but the last river was actually quite a ways back from this stretch, and the warm, wet sea breezes that kept that land well watered were blocked by mountains and high elevation around here. 

The land of Wind, where the village of Sand was hidden, got its name for the fact that it had very little vegetation. During the day, sunlight heated up those sands which in turn heated up the air. Hot air expanded, pushing out, and rose up, pulling in loads of air from all around. This movement of air was called wind. Then in the evenings when the sun went down this phenomena reversed itself. Deserts can actually be very cold at night, and this chilled air contracted, pulling in, and lowered, pushing out air that had rushed in during the daytime and in the process creating more wind. 

Large bodies of water or vegetation would have put a stop to that cycle and made the land far more pleasant and livable. So, because the land was the way it was, one knew beforehand it didn't have those things. 

Pretty much anyplace that had water also had life. That Wind country was mostly made up of large stretches of barren wasteland said that rain didn't reach there very well, and between that and the fact that the land was called Wind, the rest of it followed from there. 

So, the trees of the Land of Fire faded out along those borders, replaced by swaths of dry grassy hills which in turn gave way before desert sands. 

Looking out upon this was a large group of ninja, most of whom hailed from the Land of Fire, specifically the village of Konoha. 

Sakura, who'd asked the question, glared at Temari, who'd answered it. But the Sand maiden was unrepentant, looking past her and frowning at Kakashi with his nose in a book full of smut and Sasuke baiting her husband. Kurenai was there, along with Hinata, but so was Kiba, standing there in his fur lined jacket with his dog Akamaru perched on his head. Shino stood behind. 

Temari knew for certain that after they got out on the desert those two boys were going to bake in those heavy jackets they always wore. Perhaps it was time to introduce those two to T-shirts. It could save their lives. 

Gai stood there shouting about the triumph of Youth, with Lee acting along and Neji lurking as an unhappy shadow behind them. Tenten had better things to do, and so was helping Naruto unseal more water from their packs. It was awkward, they had better canteens than this, but they couldn't use the good ones without revealing the seals they used to make them. And, if Naruto was revealed as a Great Sealing Genius it was unlikely for him to be allowed out of town at all, much less on a risky mission. 

Those seals were worth more to Konoha, or to any ninja village, than the risk of putting him on this mission was. 

Temari sighed, glancing over to her brothers. They'd never planned on inviting the extra Konoha ninja, or even her own family. This had been planned as a Clan Kitsune only event. But ANBU had caught them making preparations to leave town, and the Hokage had gotten involved asking questions, and the only excuse that would pull them out of a treason and desertion charge at that point was a "We're going to go warn Sand that their Kazekage has been assassinated and replaced by an impostor." 

And, well, that turned this into a full A-rank mission with armed ninja escort. 

And what's worse, to get everyone they wanted in on this they had to bring along all sorts of people they didn't want or need. It seemed to her as if half of Konoha was present. 

Fortunately, as this mission was "vital to the security of Konoha" they'd been able to get all of their own people on board, but to get all twelve girls, eleven Angels plus their den mother, they'd been forced to accept the escorting presence of their teams, instructors, and in some cases near total strangers. 

She had no idea what Ebisu was doing along. 

And, worst of all in everyone's opinion, in order for Naruto to come along he had to be trailing all of Team 7, worthless blighters that they were, all of them up to and including their jonin instructor (Naruto excepted, of course). 

Fortunately for everyone, Kakashi-baka was not in charge. 

"Alright, everyone, marching orders!" Hana called out. Technically, Tsunade was in command of this group, but it took just a nudge for her to defer to the pack's Alpha female, who used her authority wisely. "Naruto, we need an extreme perimeter, call it one mile out, make a ring with enough clones so they can see each other easily." 

"Right!" the boy called out from the back of the massive tiger he was riding, and in a heat-shimmer like moment there were suddenly thousands of him, AND thousands of his mount, Simba. 

The rest of the clan was still trying to figure out how he did that. He'd explained it several times, but making shadow clones of his mount was just... HOW! 

There was, of course, a complete absence of puffs of smoke as they had appeared. Naruto was just way too good to leave any such traces anymore. 

Shifting on the back of her own tigress mount in the heat, Ino followed the example of some of the other girls and adjusted the seals on her clothing with a bit of chakra and their color shifted to a leopard spotted light tan, far better suited to hiding in a desert environment than the previous forest camouflage colors. They were working on seals that would adapt patterns automatically, but no breakthrough yet. Those would require environmental awareness out of seals, and that was something really hard to ask out of a scribble of ink on paper. 

Her teammates, Shikamaru and Choji, eyed her, her mount, and her costume for what had to be the thousandth time. "Don't say it," Ino warned. "I swear, if one of you says I'm 'troublesome' again, I'm going to let Nala here play with you," and to punctuate that, she reached down and patted the muscled shoulder of her massive tigress. 

The cat chose that moment to yawn. 

Mounts of the Kitsune Clan averaged about twelve feet long and a thousand pounds, with all of the smooth, lean grace of successful predators. The fact that they wore their own carefully articulated armor was noted, as were the masses of razor sharp, pointy teeth. 

"Arf!" Ino's puppy, Blondie, barked from her perch on top of the girl's head. 

So they had to memorize Time Dilation illusions to train them anew each reset, so what? Having pets was cool! And comforting. 

Shikamaru lowered his head to rub the bridge of his nose. You could tell he was actually trying to suppress the urge to say 'troublesome', as the lazy genius could guess that tigers (and dogs) had good hearing, and those claws looked SHARP! 

Choji had less tact, and blurted out through a mouthful of potato chips, "I still want to know where you got all of your cool stuff." 

"I TRADED SEX FOR NINJA EQUIPMENT AND TRAINING, HOW'S THAT!" the girl shouted aloud, annoyed beyond endurance by their nagging. 

Conversation stopped in the rest of the camp as people turned to look at her. Those with analytical ability sweatdropped at they stared around at the large number of girls similarly outfitted (twelve, to be precise), and came to conclusions of their own. 

"Hey, Choji. I could make you armor and stuff if you want," Naruto called back. "Why didn't you say anything?" 

Looking amazingly disgusted, Choji quickly sputtered that was unnecessary, and quickly ran off to hide. 

"Moving on," Hana smoothly interrupted this scene. "Inside the outer ring we'll need a pair of patrols circling to make sure no one gets past. Since..." here she made a brave attempt to avoid sniggering, trying hard to conceal her smile, "Since the Sharingan is undefeatable, Kakashi and Sasuke can take opposite routes circling the main group. That way they can tell if any illusion using ninja break past our perimeter." 

The amazing thing was, Hana actually kept a straight face until the two lazy and arrogant Sharingan donkeys went off to assume their patrol routes. It was only after they were gone that the twelve girls plus Naruto all broke out laughing. 

"I don't get it. What's so funny?" Kiba asked, with his hands in his pockets. 

Since Hinata was laughing too hard to speak clearly, or even breathe properly, Kurenai took pity on him to explain. "The duty Hana just assigned is the worst in the whole company. The outer perimeter clones only have to get in position, then they move at the same speed as we do. However, to do a patrol circling the main group, those two will have to be moving several times as fast as the rest of us. And it is miserable and exhausting work, keeping up that pace, especially over dry and dusty desert terrain." 

Hinata overcame her amusement momentarily, enough to elaborate, "Plus, as counter-stealth agents they have to be fairly stealthy themselves, so a sneaky intruder wouldn't know how to avoid them. So it's even more work." 

"Yosh!" Gai cried out, striking a pose, teeth glinting as he smiled. "Such a patrol makes for a great workout! Lee! We should go and assist them in this arduous duty!" 

"Hold on," Hana interrupted. "I'm counting on you two to take over after those lazy bums get exhausted. Patrols may be difficult labor, but they've still got to be done, and we'll need someone fresh to take over when they get fatigued." Then she smirked. "I don't think those two will last very long. You can think of it as a competition with them, if you like. Count yourselves superior to them if you can do a longer patrol than they do without wearing yourselves out." 

"YOSH!" The eerie thing was, people could SEE the flames burning in Lee and his teacher's eyes. 

"Right now I need you two to summon some turtles for the rest of us to ride on," the Inuzuka heiress finished simply. 

"But I have sworn not to use any chakra techniques in the presence of my faithful student, so as not to discourage his quest to become a great ninja without the use of chakra!" Gai shouted. 

"Did we forget that? I'm sorry." Shizune interrupted her conversation with Choji and walked over to Lee. "We've known how to fix those chakra coils of his for... well, it seems like forever. The idea was Naruto's, but any of us can do it now. Here you go." She applied both hands to the stunned youth, and in a couple of glowing seconds, he was feeling most strangely. 

"And to cap that off," she stopped herself before mentioning the time dilation illusion specifically, just applying the technique to the boy and giving him a recorded year or so of chakra training in two minutes. 

Surprisingly, the rest of the camp was still and silent as she did this. 

Naruto had trained Lee this way in person enough times to have memorized their entire year of training together. And to avoid having to live it out over and over again, had simply copied that pattern into one stable illusion he could use or apply at need. Then he'd taught that to his Angels. 

"YOSH!" The newly invigorated Lee shouted out moments later, before forming a handseal and blasting out a pair of fireballs. 

Shizune smiled as Gai and Lee hugged each other, shouting and crying aloud in their joy over this event. 

"So, Lee has a Fire affinity?" Asuma casually sidled up to Kurenai and asked, hoping to strike up a conversation and wondering why she'd been so cold and distant to him recently. 

"Not naturally, no," she spoke more for the benefit of her genin team, Hinata being the obvious exception, as she already knew all of this. "His affinity is actually Lightning. Teaching himself fire techniques is a great deal of work." 

"But hard work is what Gai and Lee excel at," Hinata added primly. "They like it. And considering how often they talk about the 'Flames of Youth' it's hard to see Lee NOT going to the effort of mastering Fire techniques." 

Kurenai was nodding, making sure her genin overheard her. "As far as I am concerned, given the way he trains, Lee with chakra would probably be the strongest genin. So strong it would be impossible for him to stay a genin for very long. Promotions are certain to come quickly for him." 

Kiba jerked as if stung, then pondered. 

Meanwhile, Gai produced the turtle summoning scroll, and it was with great ceremony that he permitted Lee to sign it, gaining the ability to produce those summons. 

It was a landmark event. Summons numbered among the most powerful and versatile of ninja techniques, and that reminded Kurenai to make sure to get her husband working on some scheme to get his baka-teacher to hand over the Dog summoning contract to the Inuzuka clan, who'd actually use it more than the incredibly lazy porn addicted loser ever would. 

No reason at all not to have those summons used by a clan who'd love and appreciate them. And it would make Konoha stronger to hand that scroll over to a clan, rather than rot in the grip of a jonin who had to be compelled to make any effort at all. 

Being precious, and also personal as well as highly secret and restricted, no one could order Kakashi to surrender the scroll (even if he retained the right to use the summons). But she was confident Naruto could think of a way to get him to hand that over voluntarily. 

Besides, being dog lovers, it only made sense to grant the Inuzuka ability to use Dog summons, as all of their clan techniques built on that relationship, so both they and the summons would be stronger for it. 

Kakashi had stolen some Inuzuka clan techniques for exactly that purpose. 

Kurenai had to admit that, having Kiba as her student, she wanted to see him do well. Not to mention that she could expect the gratitude of the clan Alpha female out of this, if it worked, as Hana was an Inuzuka too. 

Inwardly, she resolved to develop a variant of Naruto's "give Lee a year of chakra training" illusion for teaching Kiba, and perhaps Shino, how to use a summoning technique. 

Then she came to ground on the fact that she couldn't do a summons either, and was surprised that they, as a clan, hadn't addressed that yet. 

Actually, she did know of one... no, make that three, who used summons in the clan. Naruto typically got toads (although she had no idea if he'd gotten that ability this reset or not), Tsunade was the legendary slug summoner (and her summons, while kind of icky, were also very nice once you got to know them), but there was also Temari. 

She'd have to ask the Sand maiden about her Weasel summons, as that might be something she'd want to explore. 

Weasels weren't icky, and they were surprisingly ferocious for their size. Besides, some of them fought snakes, and that had all sort of possibilities! 

Kurenai left a pondering Asuma's side to go mention her idea to Anko. 

---- 

"Lunch time!" Hana called out over the procession. 

Sakura started out of her thoughts. She'd been staring, pale and scared, at Ino, her former friend, wanting but not daring to ask if she'd been serious about what she said about sleeping around in exchange for ninja training. 

When they'd started out on this desert trek hours ago, Gai and Lee had summoned up a trio of enormous tortoises. Tenten had then produced tents out of her storage scrolls and set them up as howdahs on those broad, smooth backs, where they'd been resting out of the sun while the turtles crossed the sands for them. 

At their size, larger than most houses, the tortoises actually walked pretty fast, and with their broad, flat feet they weren't troubled by the hot sand in the least. So it was an amazingly fun and comfortable way to travel across what would otherwise have been a very difficult terrain. 

The unmounted tigers had made a point of lazing about in feline indolence, looking, as cats often do, bonelessly comfortable under those tents on the backs of the shells of the big reptiles. 

But Sakura had noticed hardly any of it. 

"Go ahead and ask. I know you want to," Ino told her, without looking at her. 

Sakura gave a guilty start, then mustered her courage. "Was it true, what you said?" 

"True, but misleading." Ino admitted. "I actually married a strong ninja, and he gave me techniques and training. I made it sound bad so my teammates would stop bugging me - and wouldn't ask how they could do it too." 

True to form, Sakura blurted out what was, to her, the most obvious conclusion. Pointing a finger at the blonde, she shouted, "There is no way you could have married Sasuke-kun!" 

Sasuke, nursing burns on the soles of his feet from hot sand having gotten in those sandals he wore on the patrol they'd run, looked up along with the rest at this proclamation. 

Ino tossed her hair angrily and huffed, standing up to put hands on her hips and shout back at Sakura, since everyone would be listening anyway. "I never said I did! In fact, get this through your amazingly thick skull: I DON'T WANT TO MARRY THAT PATHETIC LOSER!" 

"Don't you dare bring Naruto into this!" the pinkette shouted back. "He has nothing to do with..." 

SLAP! 

Ino withdrew her hand from Sakura's cheek, now actually mad. "I'm MARRIED to Naruto, you tit! He has EVERYTHING to do with this! SASUKE is the bastard I call a pathetic loser! And why? Because he IS! Do you know how much extra, secret training it took during his time at the Academy to get those grades of his? Or that he'd know more than THIRTY ninja techniques if only he'd ever bothered to read the scrolls people gave him as presents? He's an ass, and as lazy as his teacher! BOTH OF THEM are utterly pathetic wastes of flesh!" 

"Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel," Temari joked from her position, lounging on cushions under the shade. 

The ridiculousness of that statement caused laughter around the tents, and put a halt to Sakura's urge to get violent in defense of her Sasuke. 

"You KNOW what my clan techniques are, all of you," Ino addressed the crowd. "I've been in the Uchiha's head, and you know what? Sasuke's mind is nothing more nor less than a container of filth." The girl put on her boots. "He's a totally spoiled, stuck up bastard who literally has never thought of anyone but himself. I'm not going in there again if I can help it." 

Sakura sputtered, but Sasuke glared at the blonde girl across the carpets. 

"Oh, now the great Uchiha genius is going to sulk." Ino mocked, adjusting the straps on her armor. "You may think you're giving us the silent treatment, but really you're just going to pout." 

Growling at her, the Uchiha got up to flounce off to where he could pout in private. Although his dramatic exit was spoiled as many of those girls broke out laughing over his attempt at a glowering departure. 

Breaking off of her own laughter, Hana called, "Okay, princess, if you want to run off to cry alone you can do something useful at the same time. You and Kakashi can take over running patrols again." 

Kakashi looked up from where he'd been nursing blisters on the soles of his own feet, his one exposed eye glaring at Ino for causing a scene that got him put back on that duty so fast. 

Sakura was still nursing a red handprint on her cheek in shock. 

Ino turned to glare at her over a shoulder and huff. "I married Naruto, and he taught me everything I know about how to be a more effective ninja. He's had to lie, cheat and STEAL to get his ninja abilities, hiding them all the while from his teacher, who does everything possible to hold him back, but Naruto is one of the most effective shinobi Konoha has, and I'm PROUD of him!" 

Kiba looked up to Kurenai, trusting his teacher and disturbed that anyone couldn't trust theirs. "Kakashi didn't really try to hold Naruto back, did he?" 

Kurenai had to resist the urge to sigh, folding her arms to answer, "The day they became a team, Kakashi took the other two away to celebrate becoming a team, and left Naruto tied up, yelling for help. While they probably thought it was funny, they'd only passed the exercise for 'teamwork'. And what kind of message does that send about helping your teammates?" 

The dog boy looked sick, nor was he the only one shocked by that revelation. 

Hinata was nodding firmly. "Kakashi only ever taught his team one exercise: basic tree climbing. During the practice, Sakura didn't improve at all. Since she had good control, her teacher should have given her the next exercise, or had her work on something else, not just sit around. But Kakashi didn't care about her progress enough to do so." 

The Hyuga heiress raised her chin up and declared. "In fact, I think Kakashi only taught them tree climbing solely to help Sasuke. Sakura didn't improve from it, and Naruto's control was so bad tree climbing was too advanced for him, so he should have been started with a simpler exercise. Naruto wouldn't have improved if he weren't so determined, and hadn't had the stamina to keep going far beyond where most would quit. Sasuke was the only one that should've improved from the tree climbing exercise. Looking at it in that context, Kakashi likely thought Sakura would do it easily, making Sasuke want to improve, and Naruto would fail miserably, restoring Sasuke's confidence." 

Several of the jonin present gazed at the not-yet departed Copy Ninja with looks of shocked abhorrence. 

Somebody, no one could tell who, muttered, "What a bastard." 

Tenten folded her arms and added her part to this. "Another thing, right after we finished the second exam. Kakashi, knowing Naruto was alone his whole life, had poor skills, and really needed help, specifically told him, 'You asked me first, but I'd rather train Sasuke. Go with a different teacher.' For a totally isolated person, to be so rejected by one of his few 'precious people' would be terrible. And then he pawned him off on an instructor that hated him. You'd have to be a total scum bag to do that. Some have tried to make excuses as to why Kakashi did it, but I don't really buy any of them." 

Kakashi took his student and slunk off to do patrols quickly before the public embarrassment got any worse. 

They were not sorry to see him go. 

Several eyes then tracked over to Naruto, who shrugged. "Our team was doomed from the moment it was created. Our teacher doomed us by being too stuck on his past to care about the present. It didn't help that I was an attention starved orphan. Then we were doomed by a fangirl so mindlessly obsessive about her crush she couldn't see anything else - like how pathetic her own skills were as she walked ignorantly into deadly peril with stars in her eyes, not even noticing the danger... and by Sasuke, who in some ways had all of the flaws of each of the others. He was lost in his past, preened under the attention, and so focused on something, in his case revenge, that he couldn't see anything else. Our only 'teamwork' was to all be dysfunctional together." 

Tsunade gave a shrug, effectively ending that conversation. "You can't save people who don't want to be saved." 

----  
Author's Notes: 

This thing didn't want to be written. I was stuck forever halfway done... and then just suddenly there it was, the gift came back all on fire, just as before. 

I can't explain it, it just happens sometimes. 

But I'm halfway through writing the next chapter already. 

----  
Omake by drvash  
(it made me laugh, so I thought I'd offer it to the rest of you) 

Question:  
What if the only permanent way to fix Gaara's seal was to turn him female so that he/she can join them in the time-resets? 

Naruto: "I've found out how to repair your seal so you can sleep again and control Shukaku, but it'd turn you into a woman."  
Gaara: (pause) "Okay."  
Naruto: "Really? You're fine with this?"  
Gaara: "The sand prevents me from touching people, so I never bothered to develop a sexual identity. Not having dangly bits wouldn't be that big of a change."  
Naruto: "Wow. I never thought about it like that."  
Gaara: "Either way, I become a ravenous beast once a month."  
Naruto: (sweat drops) 


	47. Chapter 47

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Seven 

by Lionheart 

---- 

Gai was having a great time, busy torturing Kakashi's eardrums about his 'Eternal Rival' having lost the contest of who could stay on patrol longer as the group broke from their travel routine and made camp for the night. 

Lee was, not coincidentally, having the same fun teasing Sasuke over his same loss on the exact same subject. The geniuses of hard work had done more patrols over a longer time and been better off afterwards than the duo with the 'unbeatable' bloodline. In fact, the difference between the two was amazing, with the hard workers having done several times as much, while being better off at the end of it. Facts that the bloodline geniuses were not enjoying hearing, or having paraded about the camp. 

Of course, that was far from the only thing happening in so large a group. 

"So, the Yamanaka on your team is married to the Dead Last. Did you know about this?" Neji approached Choji to ask. 

"You mean you didn't?" Yugao, who'd been lurking nearby, blurted. "I thought everyone knew. I mean, they had a beautiful wedding." She touched her lip, considering. "Come to think of it, I didn't see either of you there." 

Actually, they HAD been, they just wouldn't remember that. 

Yugao, as den mother, had the job of averting all kinds of suspicion. 

"And I wouldn't call him 'Dead Last'" Shizune, who'd been stirring some stew, also thought to throw in. After sipping a bit to taste the flavor, she added some cloves, while still talking, "I mean, he's not perfect, virtually any jonin, even many chunin, could beat him one-on-one. But that's the trick, they'd never be able to face him in a one-on-one fight. Naruto comes in only one size - thousands." 

"Konoha has had several legendary ninja," Kurenai joined this conversation and nodded. "The Three Sannin, The Professor, the White Fang, Yellow Flash, Copy Cat, but someday soon we'll all be ranking the Orange Swarm among the rest of them." 

Asuma, Kakashi, Ebisu and other jonins or special jonins listening in gave each other significant looks, wondering where this support had come from. 

"Ayame, you're up!" Hana called, inadvertently breaking this conversation. "We're dry and dusty, so the quicker the better." 

Several heads actually turned to look in on this. They were indeed dry and dusty despite the relative ease of their desert trip and, since the obvious assumption was that, having brought a cook along, she was going to cook something (in spite of Tsunade having claimed her as a second apprentice - they were all ninja, and knew that rules could be bent in order to bring a little extra comfort along). 

Instead, the ramen chef's daughter walked out to a decent stretch of clear sand not too far away and started forming handseals. Eyebrows went up all around as the never-a-ninja-before cast an Earth technique, causing the sand to fall away, shrinking as spaces between grains vanished, and it collected into large stones, then boulders, and finally created a wide yet irregular pit about three to four feet deep on average. 

This looked pathetically useless to the experienced ninja as a combat technique, but they heard murmurs of approval from the various girls around camp. 

"Sand to Clay!" Ayame called out as her next technique, sealing up many of the cracks in between boulders with material that would absorb more than drain away. 

The male jonin were still puzzled. It didn't create any sort of defensible wall, it looked useless as a trap... 

Then Tenten unsealed several thousand gallons of water and they were looking at a hot spring bath. 

The eyes of unaligned girls went wide and they began drooling. 

"You men can go see to the tents, or something." Hana waved those with a Y chromosome off. "We ladies are going to get the sand out of our hair." 

"Naruto?" Tsunade called out as she loosened her collar. "Can you give us a wall? Let's not forget, there are perverts about who would probably try peeping. I'd do it myself but none of the rest of us have mastered your trick of the roses." 

"Right!" the boy darted forward, already forming a handseal. Out of the ground rose up a dome of crystalline rock completely covering the spring. The rock dome was thick enough to survive a substantial pounding, able to pass light, but not clear enough to see any detail through. 

What made it most interesting was that the dome's entire outer surface was covered in very detailed, very lifelike carvings of roses, comprising a mass of needle-sharp, spiky thorn vines that, despite ninja being ABLE to walk on such surfaces, none of them would want to as it would tear their feet to bloody rags. Thus, those bathers within could be assured of their privacy, as no one should be willing to peek in any of the ventilation ducts above (and those had bendy curves within the couple feet of rock, so they couldn't be seen directly through even by perverts sufficiently motivated to not care about their feet getting sacrificed in service to their hormones). 

And, though it wasn't obvious at present, the nature of the crystal was aligned in such a way that those within could see out almost clearly, while almost blocking the view from out to in. 

Upon entering, every girl looking at it felt that every hot spring resort ought to have such a feature as that dome of rock. 

The girls almost immediately began to file inside the arched entryway. 

---- 

"Ahh! I love a good soak at the end of a day! Total heaven!" Sakura cried out happily to a chunin she didn't know. 

It would have been unfair, the female portion of the group shirking out on responsibilities to bathe, but each of the Clan Kitsune girls had, after a very brief scrub, made a Shadow Clone and sent that off to help with camp chores like cooking and setting up latrines and so on. 

Although, really, with the right jutsu, none of those tasks took very long. 

Of course, that delay caused those girls to be last into the spring to soak, and that left Sakura facing a parade of bottoms, all of them with 'Property of Naruto Uzumaki' penned on them, most of them in the girl's own hand. 

The pinkette was having a terribly difficult time not dying from the shock. 

"Remember, Naruto, don't be a stranger!" one of those girls called out the bath entrance to the blushing blond boy, who had tons of eyes from the male ninja on him, none of them quite believing what they were hearing and wondering, in an analytical sort of way, if he'd actually be going. 

"Yeah, our masseur can enter our bath anytime!" another giggled. 

Naruto was having a difficult time deciding what to do. Most of the busy work outside in camp was now done. They had a short defensive wall around the camp. The summons had disappeared, and the cloth and canvas tents that many of the older jonin and chunin packed had proved entirely unnecessary, as he'd gone about, using Earth techniques to compress sand into little stone igloos, mostly buried by the rest of the sand. They had steps down to a front entrance, which could be covered by a trapdoor, and two emergency exits, with basic furnishings inside, and were more comparable to decent hotel rooms than camping. 

Dust the place with a fairly thin coat of sand and you'd never even know the huts were there, until ninja came swarming out like trapdoor spiders. 

The camp had a pair of towers so lookouts could see afar off. The latrines were dug and had their own outbuildings, complete with half moons on the doors. It really resembled more of a semi-permanent trading settlement than a one night camp, but all it had taken was a little chakra to pull off. 

All this required nowhere near the amount of work he was used to, actually. Their clan compound took an amazing amount of labor to get right! 

The buried stone huts were set for single occupancy for chunins or jonin, and double for genin. But none of his girls would be staying in them. They had a fairly substantial aboveground manor house complete with balconies and individual bedrooms, all nicely arranged. The stone of the building had been done by him and furnished by them out of sealing scrolls. 

And the master bedroom had a little fox face on the door, reading "Naruto" under the plaque, something that had caused bug-eyes from Kakashi and Sasuke when they'd seen it, touring the main house. 

But, hey! He was the one who'd built it! 

Figuring that he wouldn't even be able to sleep in his own room if he didn't face up the wondering eyes now on him, Naruto went to the door, which had a U-shaped bend so that no one could see right through (although they could hear just fine) and called in, "Knock, knock! Do you mind if I come in?" 

"NARUTO!" Sakura shouted out, her face turning bloody red. "How DARE you even suggest such a thing!" 

"News flash: We invited him." Ino told her coldly. 

"One moment please," Hana called back out the entrance, before turning to the girls within. "Alright ladies, naked bathing is now over. Put on a suit if you have something you'd rather the men not be seeing, otherwise thank you for your stay, but we can't afford to let our male ninja drop in fighting ability because of sand getting in their clothes and chaffing away their skin." 

Turning back to the entrance, Hana called, "Five minutes!"

Virtually all of the ladies present simply touched rings and were dressed in modest one-piece bathing suits of opaque fabric, complete with short skirts. Their husband had no need to go leering at them through skimpy suits, and they had no desire at all to show off for anyone else. 

One or two girls not from the Kitsune Clan got dressed and left. 

"But, I don't have a swimsuit." Sakura sank into the water, turning pale. "I didn't think I'd need one, out in a desert." 

"You have two options," Hana told her. "Borrow one, or leave the bath. The men deserve a chance to get clean also, and we didn't bring enough water to create two springs." 

Although, mentally, that was getting earmarked for the next trip, and by more girls than just Hana. 

Seeing she was alone as nude and about to leave, Sakura turned to one of the other girls for support. "I don't suppose you.."

Kin took pity on her and threw her a yellow bikini, saying, "Here." 

"Thank you!" the pinkette cried gladly. 

When she was halfway into it, the Sound kunoichi replied. "It's no problem. I didn't get a chance to use it in the kinky sex games I'd planned for it." 

Sakura froze in place with a grimace on her face. 

"One minute til the boys come in. Everyone, clear out the north side." Hana prompted, secretly enjoying the pinkette's agony. "We don't want any hands to wander underwater. Hinata, could you set up a screen?" 

Without rising from the water, the Hyuga heiress formed a handseal and did so, forming a thin wall of dirt between the two sides of the bath. 

On seeing that it was only a privacy screen, just taller than a man and not very much of a barricade, Sakura hurried into her borrowed swimsuit, getting the last strap on right before a few tentative male faces poked in. 

A clone of Hana left the waters to stand by the entrance, telling all. "Boys to the north side, girls to the south. No shared pools. No groping." 

Then the chunin pretended not to notice as Shizune and Anko reached out from behind her and grabbed Naruto, dragging him back into the girls side. 

"What?" Sakura called out in disbelief this was allowed to happen. 

"All in favor of Naruto on the girl's side?" Ino called out, raising her hand. 

"Aye!" every female hand went up, aside from Sakura, whose hair bugged out, particularly as she stared at the chunin who'd been so busy making sure no shenanigans occurred, and had her hand raised. 

"I'm sorry, did you not see this?" Hana, bottom safely pointed away from the men, lifted the back of her skirt to showcase to the girl 'Property of Naruto Uzumaki" penned in permanent ink on her flank. 

"Don't be a spoilsport or I'll ask for the loaned suit back," Kin teased. 

Red faced, Sakura sank down into the water. 

Tenten smirked. They had no need to tell the girl that suit shrunk every time the phrase "Itsy bitsy, teeny weenie, yellow polka dot bikini" was sung in its presence. 

No way had she earned the privilege! 

Now there was not a woman, living or dead, that did not know where she stood in her own social circle. 

Those social circles could be large and strong, or small and weak, anything in between and then some. They could be static or fluid, and they could even change to which circle they belonged, but a girl ALWAYS knew her position in the pecking order, who could snub whom and so on. 

Sakura, to her great astonishment, found herself dead last. 

Now it has, on occasion, happened before that someone outmaneuvers someone else to displace them. The workings of female social orders are as active with plots and positioning and the carrying on of campaigns as units in World War II. It was a ceaseless activity. But rarely was there an upset as complete as Sakura was experiencing. 

She'd known her position, and it had always been a fairly high one (since the day Ino befriended her, at any rate). She had been a leader among the girls in her academy class, and a leader among Sasuke's fangirls after that. Having enjoyed high positions in those clubs she'd chosen for her own before this, it came as quite a shock to her to be among kunoichi who snubbed her as a matter of routine. 

These girls, these ninja, had no use for her opinions and wouldn't back her plays. She was an outcast, and had no idea how she'd gotten there. 

These were her peers. Since becoming a ninja she'd left the civilian social circles she'd once belonged to. Her high academy grades and closeness to one of the rising elite young ninja had always before guaranteed her a high place in the esteem of her fellow kunoichi in her age range. 

This in turn had granted her confidence, and some feeling of authority. 

Now, instead of esteem, they brushed her off like she didn't exist. And when she called for support to react to those snubs, it simply didn't appear. 

She was the dead last, back to where she'd been before Ino befriended her. 

On realizing her position, that her peers had no use for her in their circle at all, the young girl excused herself to run off and cry in her hut in the ground. 

Any girl that rejected by her own social group basically no longer belonged to it, and had to go find some other group with which to belong. 

She was devastated. 

---- 

After the baths, it was time for dinner, and the tables glittered under an array of fine dishes. 

There were gasps of awe, long periods of stunned and reverent silence, and not a few people fainting or breaking out crying upon first sampling the food. 

It was that good. 

"I had thought I had eaten the best meal of my life when we had lunch upon the backs of our shelled friends!" Gai shouted aloud to the group, holding a spoon aloft in the air, a bowl in the other hand. "But that was NOTHING compared to the banquet that has greeted us tonight!" 

Spinning around, the jonin knelt before the sannin's first apprentice, saying, "Shizune! The Fires of Youth burn brightly within you! Your cooking is a feast fit for emperors! Will you marry me?" 

"Silly," the girl waved him away. "I'm glad you like the food, but I only made a stew to feed our tigers. You haven't even eaten my cooking. Besides, I am already married, see?" 

And she showed off a large and glittering, jewel encrusted ring. 

"Ayame!" The green clad jonin jumped to his feet and spun around. 

"Already married," the girl showed off her ring, also giggling. "Besides, I was too busy soaking in our tub to cook this evening." 

Baki, ever security conscious instructor of the Sand team, showed concern, stopping before he lifted his own spoon to his lips. "Then who cooked it?" 

Unspoken was the message, 'If we don't know, it could have been anyone, even an enemy, and having an enemy prepare your food is death.' 

Eyes darted around in an instant of uncertainty before Tsunade broke through the rising panic to state, "It was Naruto. He always has spare clones available. Besides, he likes to pamper us."

"Did someone call my name?" The boy poked his head out of the big kitchen, wearing an apron and chef's hat, a stirring spoon in his hand. "If not, I'd best be getting back to my batter if you want to have the cakes and pies on time for dessert." 

And with that, he vanished. 

Kakashi and Asuma stood shoulder to shoulder as they approached Tsunade, who was the official leader of this expedition, even if she let her secretary Hana handle most of the day-to-day. "Honorable Tsunade, we request special permission to jointly escort Naruto back to Konoha. His cooking skills present far too valuable a strategic resource to be allowed to fall into enemy hands." 

Tsunade groaned, dropping her head into her hands. First his tailoring and clothing designs, then his seals, and now his cooking!

It was getting real annoying having to hide Naruto's skills from the rest of the village, lest they pull him off of ninja duties! Besides, once he had to start concealing something, that limited how much he could improve on it, and how much THEY got to ENJOY it! 

And she'd grown truly fond of Naruto's cooking. He'd really improved since the weddings, and giving that up even if only in public, was going to be a hardship at the very least. 

"Denied." she told the duo, and before they could object, added, "How else am I going to eat his cooking for the rest of this trip?" 

The two jonin looked at each other, silently agreeing with her reasoning. They wouldn't want to be without those sterling meals, either! 

In the background, making a play for recovered status by drawing on her most reliable standby, Sakura approached Naruto with a bowl in her hands and a smile on her face. "This is really excellent cooking, Naruto!" she told him brightly. 

"Thanks," the boy brushed her aside dismissively, hurrying off to other tasks that held his real attention. 

Behind him, Sakura stood crushed, eyes wide. She'd ALWAYS been able to rely on him for approval when she needed it! And complimenting him like that was supposed to trigger a FLOOD! 

Instead, she got brushed aside as though she were meaningless. 

Sakura was devastated. He'd gotten away from her. She didn't know how, or when it had happened, but she had lost him. Her attempt to reel him back had come too late, and she'd missed all of the danger signs of his approaching separation. She felt shame as she realized it had been too late to keep him before she'd even thought to try. 

What had she done? Had she been so terrible? Except, well... maybe she had. Looking back on it, she couldn't recall the last time she'd said or done something nice for the blond haired boy. 

She hadn't wanted to encourage him, but... 

Suddenly she realized that he'd become her foundation. He'd been her one constant, a never ending source of affection bearing her up no matter how life got her down; her ace in the hole against Ino, and something to cheer her up every time Sasuke turned her down - And now she had truly lost him. 

She couldn't put to words how much that hurt, or how scary it was to find herself cut free of that support, to suddenly find herself adrift in the world having to face all of the little hurts and Sasuke's rejections on her own. 

With a bite out of her heart she realized Naruto hadn't even been calling her Sakura-chan. It had always annoyed her before, but now... she missed it. 

Naruto's loyalty had been the one thing she could always count on in her life, and now, she simply didn't have it. 

That hurt her beyond the ability of words to express. 

The girl ran off to her hut to be alone, suddenly having no appetite in spite of the glorious nature of the food. 

---- 

A certain pink haired kunoichi lay sprawled miserably upon her bunk, alone in her underground hut that was built for two. All of the other girls had places to be, and people to be with, and she had nothing. 

It was the most miserable experience of her young life. But, having already cried herself to sleep over it, her tears now came more silently as she lay or huddled there, unaware of even what time it was. 

It was probably sometime in the morning, but light didn't reach down there very well, and she'd closed the trapdoor over her steps when she'd gone in to be alone last evening, so it could still be night. 

She neither knew nor cared at that point, too empty to feel anything. 

Women define the value of their existence by the relationships they had to others as much as men defined their value by their accomplishments, and it had come to Sakura in one catastrophic moment last night that she had no one. 

Only... well, maybe... perhaps she had Sasuke. She was closer to him than anyone, although that wasn't saying much. 

It also didn't help her as she pictured Naruto doting on all of those other girls, how tenderly he'd treated them and how close they'd all seemed to him, all the while going over those memories thinking "That could have been me." 

The steps of camp patrols had woken her. Sometime during the night a breeze had swept a fine layer of sand over her bolthole and now the path taken by the ninja walking past on guard went practically right over her door. 

"Hey Sasuke," she heard someone call faintly, just outside her door. The steps of whoever was on patrol stopped. 

"What is it?" came the voice of her crush, and Sakura, realizing that it had been Sasuke walking past her hut who knows how long, began to hurriedly pull herself together, checking her clothes and washing her face, checking her face in the mirror and being appalled, but realizing that she had to take this chance or truly have nothing. 

"I was wondering if you'd seen Sakura," the other voice continued, and she recognized it as Kiba. "She ran off during dinner and no one's seen her since." 

"Hn. So what?" 

The Uchiha did not hear the sound of a tender heart breaking as he petulantly asked the heartless question. 

"Well, dude," Kiba continued, "She is a ninja of Konoha. We're supposed to care if one of them runs off or gets killed or something." 

Sasuke snorted disdainfully. "She'll never matter. All she can do is delay us." 

"Dude, that's cold. Don't you even care for her a little bit?" 

"No. Why should I?" 

There came a scattered tinkling of little shattered heart pieces falling to the ground below them, but neither boy noticed. 

"Well, she is hanging off you all the time. I can tell she likes you." The dog user touched his nose in confidence. 

"She's weak." The Uchiha bitterly returned. "The weak don't matter. The only thing I care about is getting revenge on my brother." 

"Yeah, I heard about that," Kiba challenged, upset by the other boy's cold and heartless words. One could even imagine the boy folding his arms. "But didn't you have another goal, that of reviving your clan? What are you going to do about that?" 

"Doesn't matter. First I must kill Itachi." 

"And then what?" Kiba asked. "What are you going to do? How do you plan to revive your clan? Screw yourself?" 

"Then I will find someone strong." 

"Yeah, well, news flash: If she's not in our age group, she'll probably not be interested. And the available pool of ninja trained girls our age just thinned out as Naruto grabbed like, half of them. Sakura's probably the strongest one left that has any interest in you. I don't care for her a bit, but you should. She's your best chance to find any willing piece of tail in Konoha." 

"Hn. If I can't find a strong kunoichi in Konoha, I'll go elsewhere." 

One could HEAR the hackles go up in Kiba's voice. "Dude, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Go missing ninja? Just to find a willing broad you think is strong enough for you? You're sick! If strength's all you're after, why don't you train up someone to a level you'd like, huh?" 

Loyalty was VERY important to the Inuzuka, and Sasuke'd just openly displayed an appalling lack of it. In fact, he'd just admitted to the opposite. 

"People like Sakura will never be strong," Sasuke returned, uncaring of the ire he caused in the other genin by this response. 

"Yeah, well, listen to this: There is only one kind of strength that matters, Uchiha! And that is LOYALTY! If your brother had it, you'd not be such a waste case now! You'd still HAVE your clan! But you've just shown you're every bit as disloyal to us as he was to you! You just watch yourself, Uchiha! You step one foot out of line and I'll be there ready to take you down!" 

There then came the sound of steps as Kiba stomped off. 

---- 

"Na... Naruto?" 

The named boy looked up out of the midst of the girls he was playing with in the largest pool of the spring. It being morning, and all the necessary bathing having been taken care of last night, the screen had gone down and it was back to girls only - Naruto excepted.

Sakura was standing there in the door, and she looked like death had tossed her back for not being up to its standards. 

But, for all of that, she was trying to put on a brave face, and was wearing the yellow bikini Kin had loaned her the other night. 

"Yes?" he asked solemnly, somehow disturbed by her appearance. Even the girls had stopped laughing and joking around as the wreck of a shattered girl walked down into and through the water, before stopping close to the boy. 

"I..." the girl's breath caught in her throat, and she started again, picking apart the knot holding her top closed to open it before Naruto, showing him her small breasts. "I would like to trade sex for training." 

Naruto gaped up into her face before looking desperately around his Angels, not knowing what to do. But they were every bit as surprised as he was. 

Sakura swallowed, but held her face as happy and pleading as she could make it. Inside her head, Inner Sakura was shouting aloud for the success of their shared plan, namely, to become the strongest kunoichi in their village, and then spurn the Uchiha's advances. 

Inner Sakura was already practicing on a line drawing dummy of the Uchiha, grinding her heel into the tied up effigy's crotch. 

"Entry into that particular club is for life, Sakura," Tsunade said from where she was relaxing, using guarded tones. 

Whatever answer the pinkette might have given got cut off as a massive explosion rent the camp. 

----  
Author's Notes: 

Sorry everyone. That chapter goes against my tastes, but the story picked me up by the throat and demanded that it be written. 

I'm frankly tired of bashing on Sakura, and was planning to give her to Gaara, but my muse is insisting otherwise. So, we basically tore her down to nothing in this chapter, preparatory to her entering the resets - as really, according to my muse, at this point she'd paid her entry fee. 

I find it so very odd to disagree with my muse on something. I don't like her and would happily drop her out of the story entirely. But the muse being in charge, we'll go with what she said. 

Looks like a battle chapter is looming. I really couldn't tell for sure, as I no longer appear to be in charge.

So what do I do? Disagree with my muse to have it my way, or let her have hers? 

So troublesome. 


	48. Chapter 48

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Eight

by Lionheart

The bulk of reader response can be summed up as follows: Go with the muse. She's done a fine job so far.

Sandstorms out on a windy desert were nothing serious.

Well, no, that must be restated, they could and did kill those caught out in them, could appear with no warning, and even the natives feared them. What really ought to be said is that they are fairly COMMON.

Especially on a desert named for its strong winds.

Now if you were in charge of a ninja village out in the middle of that mess you couldn't just pull all of your patrols and guards back every time one happened - you couldn't afford to! For one, they appeared regularly, but with no notice beforehand, so travel time after seeing but before being caught in one was virtually nil. For another, no one could tell how long they would last, and they disappeared as quickly as they started.

But more importantly, being a NINJA village, you couldn't afford to go pulling your guards in and out all of the time. It made for moments of weakness. Travel times to and from their posts, even despite Body Flickers, made for openings through your defenses that spies or infiltrators or even entire well positioned armies could take advantage of.

So they simply couldn't do that.

On the other hand, they couldn't afford to lose guards to the sandstorms, either. If they were good enough to protect the village on that serious duty, they were too valuable to throw away on environmental whims.

The Hidden Village of Sand could not be defended if their own weather kept killing their guards, or preventing them from having any. And you had to have guard nets and patrols far out into the desert to give you any kind of effective warning. If they were just an instant Body Flicker away from home, then so was your enemy before they'd noticed him. And that simply wouldn't do, your guards HAD to give you more warning than that!

And to do that right, they had to be immune to the danger of sandstorms.

They couldn't stop the sandstorms from happening, of course. That would require weather manipulation on a large scale, something beyond all ninja. So the alternative was for them to be able to survive them without danger.

Thus, techniques had been born to let them do so.

So it'd been the First Kazekage who'd buckled down to deal with the problem, getting his best seal or jutsu experts together until they had a solution - and they did come up with one.

In fact, they came up with several.

Need inspires invention, and they really couldn't have settled that area in the first place without an answer to those problems. It just wasn't suited to a ninja village otherwise. With such an answer, however, it became extremely defensible.

Oh, yes, extremely so.

Because what was, until then, a liability, became an advantage.

Orochimaru had decided that his new body with its eyes running around in the center of a desert was to tempting a prize to resist.

However strong that group was, it was still smaller than Konoha itself, and less well defended. More importantly, it was not dedicated to protecting the prize Orochimaru wanted: the body and Sharingan eyes of one Sasuke Uchiha.

No, the poor, deluded creatures were under the impression they were there to defend one of his defectors, an insignificant and disposable kunoichi.

The Snake Sannin had the security of Konoha compromised in ways that not even the resets had allowed Clan Kitsune to defeat. They had never managed to find all of his spies. So he knew the Hokage had sent a message to Sand by bird that they had uncovered his treachery, and a party consisting in part of the Sand's own genin team would be returning to that village bearing proof, and a witness in the form of a Sound traitor: Kin.

So the Konoha party was going out to, they thought, deliver a package to a peaceful, allied village.

Unbeknownst to that party (but knownst to us) Orochimaru had intercepted and destroyed that messenger bird, then used 'his' position as Kazekage to order Sand to defend themselves against the "invasion party from Konoha."

There was some grumbling and disbelief, but when a military commander gives orders to a military organization in times of war, obedience was required, understanding was not.

So really, the teams from Leaf had been walking into a trap.

Because destroying Konoha could wait.

Orochimaru really wasn't in any hurry. The body swapping traitor had one resource no one else could top: time. His habit of serial possession of new bodies meant he had, quite literally, all the time in the world. He'd never grow old, or run out of lifespan. He could afford to be patient in his plans of revenge upon the village that spawned him.

That didn't mean he enjoyed being patient. But this was not the first scheme he'd been willing to lay aside for later when a better opportunity presented itself in the short term.

No, Konoha could wait. Orochimaru's first and main interest was in obtaining the Sharingan, as that was a key to accelerate all of his remaining plans. He could master more ninjutsu faster than ever before if he had those copy wheel eyes to call his own.

So, Orochimaru, never a big believer in fair fights, brought enough force to obliterate that camp in seconds.

Or so he'd thought.

Ninja do not play fair, and particularly not when an enemy they are facing could potentially destroy them.

Both Tsunade and Kakashi were legendary figures, if a bit lapsed in recent practice. Also, there were a hefty number of jonin within the Konoha party. That was more than sufficient threat to merit the big guns, or the dirtiest tricks in the defender's arsenals.

You see, even the most legendary ninja can be beaten if you take them down before they have a chance to respond. But, being ninja, by the time they'd gotten to be a legend, one could expect most ambushes, cheap shots, or one hit takedown tactics not to work. People who couldn't survive them didn't grow up to be ninja legends.

So, only the trickiest, most overwhelming traps would do.

And the trickiest, most overwhelming traps came in layers.

Sandstorms, as it has been said, simply happen on deserts. So the guards on the shinobi camp of Konoha ninja, who hadn't been trained to operate out in such things, did nothing but hunker down behind their walls for a miserable morning when a tall wave of blown sands rushed in upon their camp.

Even the most paranoid shinobi had to accept that weather simply happened, and most of the time there was nothing more to it than mother nature doing her thing.

Of course, the very best of stealthy attacks did their best to appear exactly as what nature would be doing anyway.

That's how stealth works: Don't be remarkable.

It was when somebody made mistakes in their mimicry of nature, and those errors got noticed, that the real shinobi fights began. But, seeing as how the Sand ninja were native to this environment, and Konoha ninja weren't, their mistakes were fewer and less noticeable, while the visitor's perceptions of them were not as keen or refined as they might otherwise have been.

The home court advantage and all that. Deadly in ninja wars.

Now people dwelling in the land of Wind don't have a lot of water to walk on, nor do they possess a ton of trees to climb over, or even leaves to float, so the ninja of Sand had to learn to practice their chakra control using different things, stuff that was more readily available in their own environment.

What that area had was an awful lot of wind borne sand and dust. So, they'd developed their ninja training programs to take advantage of that. The most basic chakra control exercises for a student ninja in Sand included one they called Stormwalker, which taught one how to divert wind carrying dangerous particles around you so it did not give abrasion burns to your gear or flesh. Another, Sandsight, was to see and breathe normally despite clouds of dust.

Hey, they taught vital control using what conditions the village had on hand, and were lifesaving techniques for surviving in that environment. Such things were going to be encountered, you had to be able to deal with them.

They also made it really easy to sneak up on an enemy camp under cover of a sandstorm. The blowing sands plus the Sandsight power concealed them while permitting no concealment for their enemy.

That's a dangerous advantage.

For anyone who was curious, their third major chakra control exercise was called Sunblock, and employed the user's chakra to reduce the effects of intense sunlight on the body, so you didn't bake out on the desert. Not only was this a lifesaving exercise to have, but they got almost constant practice by using it, and that led to many excellent ninja, granting them one of the lowest genin percentage ratios of any village.

It was an environment that killed, and by becoming one with it, Sand ninja became far more deadly to their enemies.

Temari hadn't shown Clan Kitsune those techniques because they honestly had never occurred to her, just like it probably wouldn't have occurred to them to teach her water walking if they'd all been stuck in her village. The stuff necessary to train those techniques didn't occur there.

Just like Konoha didn't teach one of the most common chakra exercises of Hidden Rain, for keeping one's self and gear dry in spite of near constant precipitation so jungle rot didn't set in and consume your equipment and limbs. That wasn't a problem in the considerably less moist Land of Fire.

Ironically, one of Rain's other chakra control exercises was for starting and maintaining a fire, something not easy to do in a land so frequently wet, and where dry firewood was nearly impossible to find.

As the Konoha camp was hit by an apparently natural sandstorm caused by their attackers (several of them generating it using linked wind techniques to create a billowing, real seeming sandstorm), visibility for anyone without the Sand techniques dropped to near zero.

The ninja doing this didn't even have to be very high ranked. There were Sand genin who could do this stunt, and not a few of them, it being common, basic, and a good attack technique out on a desert; but also excellent concealment to shelter a much larger attack, and a good role for your weakest fighters to still perform usefully in combat. In fact, provided they could do the technique properly, it was the best place for your least senior, least skilled ninja, as it put those soft and squishy targets far away from the dangerous heart of a battle while still allowing them to contribute to it in a useful fashion.

Under this concealment, the most deadly, senior attackers moved in.

The two chunin on watch in the two guard towers never saw the two jonin who approached them. Nor could they block the swords of wind that cut them both to pieces before they could even shout an alarm.

Kakashi, who knew those Sand techniques as part of his copied one-thousand, looked up at the guard houses, only for his one visible eye to widen. It widened even further at the sound of a dull schlick of a knife, and the infamous Copy Ninja slumped to the ground, having been stabbed to the heart from behind by Ebisu.

"Kukukukuku," Orochimaru chuckled softly to himself, sloughing off Ebisu's face, having killed the special jonin to steal his identity for this trip. Then the amazing missing ninja reached out with his tongue, caught Kakashi's body before it hit the ground, brought it up to his mouth and swallowed it.

That was one Sharingan eye, no matter what else happened.

Still grinning in that madman way of his, the Snake Sannin vanished off into the clouds of dust.

Similar guard patrols got taken care of in similar ways.

Now, since even Konoha ninja knew that sandstorms lasted variable periods of time and no one knew how long they would be, they'd been faced with a choice to either hole up in their huts, or in the main house. Since their huts were dull and boring, while the main house had all of the food, fun and people to hang around it, it naturally followed that the majority wound up there.

Sand ninja began to ghost around the perimeter, setting explosive tags upon it, while those within laughed and joked and ate together, trusting on their guards to keep them safe.

Just to be sure, the Sand ninja ghosting around in the storm also put tags on the domes of the huts, where they were exposed to their view.

They also tried to place tags on the walls of the domes bath, but none of those would stick. There was to short a supply of smooth surface to fix them to, and they didn't dare impale them on those spikes, as the primed tags would go off the moment they got torn.

They would have sought and eventually found an answer. However, not even ambushes go perfectly according to plan.

Neji Hyuga had been tasked by the clan elders with taking care that his cousin Hinata did not fall into the hands of an enemy of Konoha. They didn't care if she died, but as an unsealed Main Branch member her valuable bloodline was exposed to the danger of theft, and they could not have their principle advantage going to some other clan.

So far Neji's duties had consisted primarily of turning on his own amazing eyes every so often to make sure he was keeping track of her. Up until this point it had been like watching a pornographic movie, the way she and the other members of 'the Harem' as he'd dubbed them, sported with Uzumaki.

It turned his stomach, playing voyeur like this. Some of that was inevitable, it came with the bloodline. You didn't choose to do it, but living in a town and seeing through walls, catching some glimpses was unavoidable, but Neji was sure that after this exposure to their antics he could write a book to outdo that infamous 'Icha Icha' series.

Although he felt some amount of gratitude to the village pariah for having taken Tenten off his hands. She was not fit to marry a Hyuga, any Hyuga, even a Branch House member like him.

And Neji admitted to some private amusement, in the back of his mind, over the mass desertion of the Uchiha's fangirls to the village clown and dead last. That they preferred the village pariah spoke volumes about the supposedly great Uchiha.

For those two favors, taking away his own annoying fangirl and deflating the image of the 'unbeatable Uchiha', Neji even felt a slight amount of fondness to the whiskered blond. It was very slight, and wouldn't get in the way of his duty, but it was present.

However, as it became time for a routine check and the branch house member turned on his own eyes to check in on his cousin again, he noticed something different: namely the bodies of dead Konoha ninja on the ground and in the guard towers, and foreign shinobi running over the camp.

"ALARM!" the always-super-serious boy shouted at the top of his lungs. "We are under attack! This building is tagged! Foreign ninja have killed the camp guards!"

Hearing his shout of warning themselves, Sand ninja detonated the incompletely distributed network of tags early, destroying only part of the manor style house and getting a few of their own ninja caught in those blasts.

One of Sand's prime explosives experts got caught in one of his own blasts, still having been in the act of placing more. However, he hadn't gotten to be so good without having learned how to shield himself from his own dangerous specialty, and although he got flung with significant force, he survived it.

The Sand ninja got slammed through a wall, skidding to a halt in a bathroom right beside Sasuke, who was standing, taking a leak. Instantly the thought went through the expert ninja's head, "Those are the most valuable balls in the Elemental Countries; They contain the secrets of the Sharingan!" Said ninja then reached up, grabbed them, cut them off their owner with a swift stroke of a kunai, and escaped back through the hole he'd entered through, leaving Sasuke behind to writhe on the bathroom floor tiles in agony.

Truly, the life of a bloodline wielder is fraught with peril. Unusual dangers of the most terrifying sort faced them every day. Very few other ninja were in any danger at all of having their danglies stolen by foreign agents.

Writhing there on the floor, Sasuke would have preferred being stabbed through a vital organ, or had an artery cut. Never pausing to think of the irony of that, he noticed he was bleeding to death and moved his hands south to try and stem the flow.

Pressing against the injury made it hurt dramatically more, though.

The explosion wrecked havoc on the Konoha camp. Ninja got flung about by the blasts, killed or incapacitated before they had any chance at all to respond to the danger.

As the manor house went up, most of the ninja who'd sheltered in it went down, already flinging the defenders into chaos.

Gai and Lee had been the first to react to Neji's warning, knowing to take anything said by him seriously. They shot out of the building like cannonballs, before even the explosions rocked it, only to discover the windborne sand blocking all sight. Not to be deterred, the duo closed their eyes. Gai threw one end of a length of cloth to his prize student, Lee, and, holding the other himself, the pair them ran about camp at top speed stringing the line between them.

The first time a Sand ninja couldn't avoid their line, the pair sensed the touch and swarmed in, pummeling the ninja to death before resuming their pattern of leaping and cavorting through camp, making so unpredictable a pattern of movements as to be completely terrifying to the Sand ninja trying to avoid them. And, though they could avoid most of the duo's rebounding about, it took a substantial amount of attention and began disrupting their attack.

One of the attackers threw over a dozen kunai toward Gai, only to have them all blocked, tracked back to their source in an instant, and for the fitness duo to have pummeled that Sand ninja out of existence also.

Then Lee and Gai were back to rebounding about through camp.

Several other Konoha chunin, jonin and genin stumbled out of the blasted ruins, blind and disoriented, only to get finished off by Sand ninja shielded from sight by the continually blowing storm.

Kiba and Akamaru stumbled out of the ruined building, having been among the lucky ones far enough away from the main blasts to survive. But they found the clouds of airborne sand just as effective at clogging their nostrils and cutting off use of their extreme senses of smell as it was at blocking sight.

The shriek of the wind wasn't doing his hearing any good, either.

Shino had been among the unlucky ones, killed in the blasts as he'd been right next to a critical building support that had been heavily tagged.

Of Shikamaru and Choji there was no sign.

Then reinforcements burst in a frenzy from the undamaged bathhouse.

--  
Author's Notes:

At first I wanted to jump immediately into resolving the cliffhanger, and ideas for the fight were spinning in my mind. However, my lovely Sailor Mars kept insisting that I write up the background so it all made sense, how and why all being resolved beforehand so no one was rebelling and saying "nu uh!" through my lovely fight as I tried to impress them.

Besides, the whole thing makes more sense if you can see where the pieces all are before the moves begin. Otherwise it's all a confusing jumble.

Unresolved questions do tend to kill the enjoyment of a good battle scene, so some certain amount of setup had to be performed, and imagine my surprise when that setup turned out to be a whole chapter-full.

And I think I got my earlier question answered in trying to write this chapter - I wanted to leap ahead to the fun and enjoyable battle scene, but my muse insisted on setup. So I fought her, and the chapter took forever and wasn't as fun to write, and in the end she had her way anyhow.

Oh, well. A lesson in humility and all of that. I'll try to be better about listening to her now. Should make things go more smoothly.

Should I be disturbed there was so much upwelling of support for the idea of a female Gaara? 


	49. Chapter 49

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Forty-Nine

by Lionheart

I think we'll go with this as our official stance: keep Gaara male.

No sooner had the explosions sounded than Clan Kitsune, in its entirety, was already in motion, out of the water and heading toward the door. Activating their own version of the White Eyes was practically universal between the first and second steps, and what they saw through the dome around their hot spring showed that the camp was already overrun by Sand shinobi.

They could dissect how and why that came to be later, but for right then, there were Konoha ninja down and dying. The attack had to be stopped. Questions could wait for later.

Only their initial rush got stopped by the U-shaped entry arch having been blocked by a solid plug of stone some shinobi had materialized within in - and the supposedly solid stone had several explosive tags embedded within it as a trap against those who might try to break out through the plug.

"What happened to our armor?" Yugao asked, amazed that only her boots and armored gloves had materialized when she'd called for it.

"I didn't have time to finish it!" Naruto shouted back, thinking ruefully of all of the traps and tricks he COULD have set up around camp, but hadn't, as this had been supposed to be an easy mission. "ANBU interrupted before I got a chance to! Besides, we weren't supposed to NEED it! This was supposed to be a fun and peaceful training mission!"

"Any idea who's doing this storm?" Hana questioned. Obvious to her was that that technique was doing the worst damage to the rest of the Konoha ninja.

"It could be anyone!" Temari whispered. "For most of our genin, this is the first attack technique they learn! With it, one ninja can shut down an entire invading army, and so every patrol is supposed to have it! Besides, the more ninja we have who know it, the wider our pool of experts when we really need someone to do it well! But this looks like several ninja working together made this storm. We do that occasionally for big operations."

"Well, we'll get those guys first." Anko cracked her knuckles.

Temari shook her head. "The ninja who are doing this could be more than a mile away. We train them to operate like that, actually. That way the chakra signal is almost completely undetectable, and there's nothing the targets can do by way of reprisal. Also, if a battle goes poorly, they can always cover the retreat of the assault teams."

"Isn't that difficult? How do you get people who have enough chakra to attack at that kind of range?" Ino asked.

"You don't have to push too hard to start a wind when conditions are already this perfect!" Temari objected. "And a low-altitude wind will pick up the sand and grit all on its own! It's actually easier doing this than throwing a fireball! And the range just kind of takes care of itself! Wind travels until something stops it!"

At that moment their husband Body Flickered out of the dome, arriving at outside edge of their camp.

"ROSE RAMPART!!" Naruto shouted, barely heard above the sandstorm, shoving both chakra-infused hands against the dirt below his feet.

An adaptation to an Earth Style Rampart (a technique he'd learned from one of those few scrolls found left around the Uchiha estate) much like his Rose Wall was an enhancement over the standard Earth Style Wall, Naruto's Rampart formed a humongous dome several hundred feet high, and trapping the entire embattled camp area within it.

Cut off from their source of wind, the bulk of the clouds of dust and sand fell to the ground almost immediately, leaving only wispy traces still floating about waist-high.

Then suddenly the newly enclosed area was filled by orange, as his clones appeared, rushing out to do battle.

"Grass of Glass!!" the lead jonin on the Sand attackers recognized the tactic Naruto had used, and countered as best he could, gathering a huge amount of chakra to his hand before plunging it into the earth below them and sending large amounts of electricity through a desert floor across a wide area just beneath the surface, creating millions of tightly packed, needle sharp blades of fairly sturdy glass at or near the surface.

Naruto's clones began to pop like soap bubbles, as anyone walking or standing on that area got his feet punctured by the needle-sharp blades.

That technique put a stop to Gai and Lee's amazing rampage, as well.

But Naruto's Angels were already rushing out of the bath dome, having used Underground Move techniques to completely bypass the enclosing wall. Their armored boots proved proof against the thin blades of glass, enabling them all to rush forward to engage in the fight.

Naruto concentrated again, and trees sprang up from the ground, growing to an immense height in seconds and filling the whole area with foliage. It was merely an illusion, but one that cut off sight for most anyone without an advanced bloodline, turning back on the attacking ninja their advantage of denying an enemy concealment under conditions that concealed them, as none of the Kitsune Clan lacked their own version of the Hyuga White Eyes.

"I think I've created a monster," Kurenai mumbled to herself, as rushing out to engage them, she found several of their attackers beginning to try Negation techniques, only to find they were still trapped inside the illusion.

Naruto had not only covered a wide area with what was, to most jonin, a fairly heavy hitting technique, but had gone so many layers deep it was almost pointless to try canceling them all out.

The kid certainly had a talent for illusions. What was worse, he had chakra to burn and the tricky sort of cleverness to use them well.

Kurenai emerged from out of an illusionary tree to stab an attacker through the heart, before moving on to other prey, her accessories out and making her look a bit like a black furred fox with red eyes.

Kiba cleared his nostrils out with a snort and, red eyed himself out of irritation from the dust that'd gotten into them, went off to join the fight, guided by the Inuzuka family nose just fine.

Kin selected for her opponent a Sand kunoichi wearing a kimono and wielding a staff who'd just finished beating down a Konoha chunin. Leaping out of the cover of an illusionary tree, however, her sword thrust still got blocked by the woman, who batted aside Kin's blade and gave her a smack to the head from the end of her staff almost at the same time.

The woman dodged back to avoid a bolt of lightning from Hinata, granting Kin time to recover, but almost as soon as she was standing the woman lashed out with something and cut the kitsune's sword off at the hilt.

Seeing movement start again, Kin raised an Earth Style Wall, only to have her barricade cut through by her opponent's attack and sever both of the girl's arms.

"AAAAAAhhh!" The former Sound ninja fell to the ground, stumps of her arms bleeding as the remains of her wall crumbled before her. "What was THAT?!" Kin cried out amidst disbelief and tears, slumping to one side.

"The iron cloth techniques," the kimono clad Sand kunoichi smugly replied. Then ribbons from the ends of the bow tied at the rear of the woman's costume snapped out, intercepting several weapons sent her way by a semi-distant Ayame, blocking them all and returning some to their source. "The first levels are to grant ordinary cloth the strength of steel, but we at Sand have combined that with our puppet control techniques to grant us extra weapons in combat. And also armor."

She let one kunai through to rebound harmlessly off her kimono with a dull 'clang!' The impact actually blunted the weapon.

Kin stared at her opponent, trembling. But outside of the other woman's gaze, cut off from her field of vision by the remains of the Angel's wall, Kin had reached out with her tail, grasped hold on one of her severed arms and brought it back against the stump, where her regeneration had taken hold and fused them back together.

One of a handful of remaining Naruto clones came charging in, only to be sliced to pieces and instantly erupt in smoke under the blindingly fast strokes of the woman's cloth blades.

The Angel allowed herself to slump backward, along with a sigh of pain, to get her other shoulder outside of the woman's vision so she could do the same to it. Apparently battles had shifted to where her sisters could no longer offer Kin any fire support, because the kimono clad woman began to walk toward her again. "Did you really think you could take on a jonin of Suna, little girl?"

"Naked in Public Technique!" Kin rose up, forming the handseals.

The Sand kunoichi's eyes grew round as her clothing exploded off of her in a shower of tiny shards, depriving her of both her most useful weapons and her defense. Kin's tail blew a hole through her chest with a Thousand Birds only moments later. The woman's staff fell apart in two pieces from where she'd tried to block with it.

Gasping, the wounded Angel rose up to go off and provide fire support for one of her embattled sisters.

Shizune rapidly entered the half-ruined manor, using softly spoken codes to pass by the terrified guards who'd hastily assembled at the open gaps and rents in those walls, trying to provide some shelter for the wounded inside.

Keeping her ears tuned for news of the battle outside, and her whiskers trim and ready to transmit the slightest sign of warning, she swiftly set about her work healing those who had not yet died among the Konoha contingent.

Temari came in and joined her moments later, ill at ease fighting other ninja of her home town. Her first patient was Kankuro, her brother, who'd been standing near the buffet table at the time the explosives had gone off, and the ambushers had deliberately seeded that area rather heavily.

Out in the thick of it, Yugao found herself disarmed by a "Heat of the Desert Sun" technique forcing the metal of her weapons and bits of armor to become blazing hot, to where she could no longer hold them.

Not bearing to think of how that could have hurt her if she'd been wearing full armor, the ANBU settled down into a Gentle Fist stance and waited for her opponent to make a move.

He came charging in moments later.

Off in her own corner of the battle, Tsunade found herself facing off against a ninja who had twin tails coming out the back of his head. They looked like cloth, and then she realized it was a close fitting cap.

"Tsunade of the Sannin. I am honored."

The Sannin flicked hair back out of her face. Tsunade had gone back to the hairstyle that she'd worn as a genin, bouncy in a way that framed her face better, and with a high arching ponytail in back. With her new bloodline and its recently added eyes, she didn't have to pull it back from her face to keep her vision clear anymore.

It also made her look substantially younger.

"You're dead, for attacking my husband and his friends like this." She, like all of Clan Kitsune, had released her foxy accessories, as the advantages they offered were simply necessary for this level of fight. Although, like most others, her were hidden under an illusionary Disguise technique to avoid disturbing their Konoha friends.

"I am a shinobi. I can accept death as part of my mission," the cap-wearing ninja told her in surprisingly jocular tones, before leaping to the attack.

"HELL VIEWING!"

'Great,' Tsunade thought wryly, on watching her arms and hands age to old and infirm, feeble limbs before her. 'Why does it have to be an illusion specialist? I can beat him,' she thought, thrusting out with a mighty punch before spinning around into a kick. 'But Naruto's going to be cuddling me for a WEEK before I can shake all the doubts about my appearance! Illusion guys always hit you where you're most sensitive!'

Activating her White Eyes to dispel the technique also enabled her to navigate through the illusionary trees which otherwise blocked line of sight after a few feet.

Her first combo got adroitly dodged, but the follow up landed a solid punch on the cap-wearing ninja's forehead, which exploded under her punch...

... into sand.

"What?!" she cried aloud.

She heard the ninja's laughter while streams of sand pulled together, forming clones. LOTS of sand clones! Nowhere near Naruto's level, but more than any average chunin ought to be able to produce.

And what was it with using sand?

"Ah, my dear Sannin, it was the first container of Shukaku that gave us the idea." The ninja laughed. "Clones can be made out of virtually any element: water, mud, leaves, even one's own shadow. Since it is cast in one's own image, it is yourself that grants you any affinity necessary to establish a clone. Having the element itself mastered is merely a bonus, albeit a very useful one."

"Grrr," not wanting to talk much, and upset at being mocked, Tsunade swung hard at a clone, wishing those trees were real so she could break one off at the base and use it as a paddle for swatting dozens of clones at once.

'There!' her borrowed Hyuga bloodline sight gave her a shot, revealing where the real Sand ninja had been hiding under about twenty feet of soil, relying on his Sand clones to take a few hits, dodge others, and eventually to wear her down.

'Not today!' she darted down with her own Underground Move technique and planted a solid hit on the guy's face, breaking his cheekbone and twisting his neck.

Amazingly enough, the guy survived it, and immediately Body Flickered out.

"Not so easy my little friend!" she raced up behind the running ninja and planted a fist between his shoulder blades, only to dissolve another sand clone.

"This guy's really beginning to annoy me," she muttered to herself.

"You still haven't got it, have you?" the guy returned to her. "All clones have their own unique properties, based on their element of origin. Water is a hard element to govern according to strict rules, so it fights at only a tenth the power of the true wielder, not perfect in following his instructions. Making clones out of one's own shadow, you are constructing them out of a part of yourself, and thus they follow instructions perfectly, but are as soft as a whisper of darkness under blows. Sand, while not an ideal substance in many ways, has the advantage of being capable of reforming every time you hit it."

And, indeed, those clones she'd disrupted were reforming around her.

"Fireball!" she called, thrusting out both fists. This was another of those techniques Naruto had modified, and instead of having to blow flames out of your mouth they could be projected from other parts of your body. Hands were easier than most.

A couple of clones got hit and slagged down, melting into glass. Two more followed a second after, and Tsunade smirked.

"Wanna bet that I've got more chakra than you, pup? This technique uses hardly any, while, as you say, all clones have differences, but they also share common properties, and being expensive chakra sinks is one of them!"

The man sweated.

At the center of acres of little glass spines, Naruto shifted his stance, grimacing at the bloody wounds cut into his feet, through the sandals, by those green blades. His regeneration just kept ejecting the glass fragments and sealing over those wounds, or else he'd have been permanently crippled by then. Still, it slowed down his maneuverability a great deal to have to cope with that much pain every time he took a step.

Glaring across at the Sand jonin, Naruto risked a quick glance to the man's feet. But, unlike Naruto, who, like most people, sank several inches into the loose, soft sand every time he shifted his weight, the jonin was standing atop those grains in much the same way that Naruto stood on water.

And, because most of those needles were partially buried, the jonin could walk right over most of them without fear of them penetrating his shoes.

Seeing his attention shift, the jonin snorted arrogantly. "Our Sandstride technique, the most basic chakra control exercise we have. Students are taught how to do it in our ninja academy, and get ceaseless practice while on patrols. It has the beneficial side effect of leaving no tracks behind on an otherwise very impressionable surface, but mostly our patrols can range farther and wider without exhaustion if we walk on top of the sand instead of wading through it, like you foreigners have to."

The man smirked nastily. "And we take advantage of that mobility, boy! Compressed Air Ball!"

The jonin shot a bullet of high pressure air towards Naruto who, having faced the same thing on a much larger scale fighting Shukaku, knew to expect a massive explosion once it hit. He knew the crushing power probably wouldn't kill him, but being blasted across hundreds of feet of those glass blades as he skidded uncontrolled across the sand probably would tear him to pieces.

Leaping was the obvious answer, avoiding the direct attack. But once he did that he'd have to land, and those glass shards would mess him up, almost certainly causing him a second's delay just to deal with the pain of landing on those spikes, a delay which the jonin was already maneuvering to take advantage of.

Naruto leapt anyway, arching high above the incoming missile, which caused a substantial amount of damage to unoccupied terrain as it detonated behind him. Noting his trajectory, the jonin fired another of the same, timing it for just as the boy hit ground.

Instead, the blonde swung away, having used his leap to assist his wires in catching on to the Rose Rampart arching high above their heads. So he didn't land where the jonin expected, and the technique he'd fired off was useless.

Of course, the jonin wasn't about to stop there. "Pressure Sickle!"

'Interesting,' Naruto thought, observing the technique race toward his wires. It looked mostly similar to his own Pressure Bullet attack, but that one used concussive force to do its damage, and he could swear this one looked more like a blade - and he could guess what that could do to his wires.

Sure enough, it cut them and Naruto went tumbling toward the ground. Once more the jonin aimed a Compressed Air Ball for him, timing it for just as the boy hit the ground.

But the boy angled himself to fall just a little faster than the Sand jonin had expected, and managed to not only land and spear his feet, but to leap off again in spite of the amazing pain. It still hurt him, though, and one could see him grimace in agony as he flew through the air on his parabolic arc. Once more he managed to slip through the air a little faster than expected and hit ground a second before the jonin's next compressed air missile. This time the pain lancing through his feet was so hard to take the young lad fell to one side, lancing more glass needles through his right leg and side, with one arm shoved into the sand to steady himself and not fall further into the mass of improbably sharp blades.

Yet still the boy managed to muster intense concentration enough to overcome the pain, even momentarily, and leap off again in the split second before the next missile hit. Although that time he landed very badly, falling on his back as his legs simply refused to support him. Needles lancing into his spine caused the blond's back to arch and he cried out in agony, but still he jerkingly brought his hands together and Body Flickered out of the way of the jonin's next missile.

That was it, however. There wasn't any more reserves to call on, and when the genin arrived he collapsed limply to the sand, barely even mustering enough to cry out when this sent glass needles into his face as he fell forward on the grit, giving away to those sharp blades it hid.

The lead jonin of the Sand contingent finished him off with considerable satisfaction, detonating the boy under another Compressed Air Ball, right before the jonin himself got hit from above by a Breakthrough technique releasing wind in a long cone, tearing apart all within.

It wasn't as strong as Orochimaru's Great Breakthrough technique, but it would do, and was what Naruto had.

Dropping from the second set of wires from which he'd hung suspended above the battlefield, he was surprised to hear a shocked cry of "Naruto!" from behind and to his left.

"Are you alright?" Ayame demanded, running up to check her husband all over for those wounds he'd picked up, but that had mysteriously disappeared even faster than their regeneration could account for.

"Yeah." Then, seeing her confusion, he elaborated, "I Body Flickered out even before his Pressure Sickle cut through my wires, leaving an ordinary illusion clone behind me, which I sent through a series of actions to draw that guy's attention. It's amazing how willing guys are to focus on an opponent they feel they are beating. I tricked him into blowing up practically all his field of glass blades by having my illusion hop from one part of it to another while he shot at it with those big explosive techniques. Meanwhile, I got to be building up to a big attack while that guy was wasting chakra shooting at my image."

Naruto rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, someday I'm going to have to apologize to Ebisu. I told that guy I could imagine no use at all for an ordinary Clone when I could already do Shadow Clones. But he was right. There's an amazing amount you can do with one. Even if it can't do any damage, they don't dispel when hit either, and make amazing distractions."

That was the moment a large dragon chose to form out of the sand where the jonin had supposedly gone down.

Turning to face this with a serious expression, Naruto formed Lightning Whips in both hands and told his bride, "Ayame, get out of here. You aren't up to fighting jonin yet."

Suddenly there were a few hundred Narutos again, standing on areas cleared out by the previous explosions.

"Grass of Glass!" the jonin cried out again, resuming his most useful area-denial technique.

"Earth Style Wall!" Naruto called out of a hundred throats, forming pillars and columns linked at the top by stone bridges, looking like some outdoor classical temple. And on top of every column was a Naruto, all of whom began flinging knives and shuriken at the jonin, all of which just happened to have wires attached, forming nets of cutting wire even as the guided weapons homed in.

The jonin formed a gesture and a cage of crystal spears rose out of the ground to protect him, then exploded outward in a hail of razor shards.

"Underground Move!" all of the Narutos called out, slipping beneath the sand to avoid the assault of razor sharp crystal.

Ayame was already running, and fairly far away, racing over to where Ino was faced off against three opponents, and not doing terribly badly considering how badly she was outnumbered. The fight could switch with a little help thrown in on Ino side, of course.

Ino had taken to Yugao's sword lessons better than practically anybody else, and was currently holding three armed attackers at bay.

Ayame chose to alter those odds more in her clan's favor.

While the ramen chef's daughter was no prize at sword combat herself yet, that was okay, as she'd begun her focus in the ninja arts on more of a fire support role, and still remained much better in that area than in others.

Ayame formed herself a dozen Shadow Clones and began to rain shuriken and kunai down in a hail of thrown weapons on Ino's opponents.

Ino noted the assistance and was glad for it. She'd been pressed hard for nearly a minute, and as anyone who's been in one can tell you, a minute of close combat fighting with your life on the line was an eternity.

She wouldn't have survived as long as she had without the Clan advantages. Her White Eyes allowed her to pass through illusions her foes would still dodge around, that had been a useful escape from a desperate situation once or twice. But also they allowed her to keep track of all of her opponents at once, which had been vital for keeping them all at bay.

Ino was fighting souped up on Beast Mimicry with a sword in each hand and a Lightning Whip on the end of her tail, and three weapons against three opponents had been just about right for keeping them from overwhelming her.

They'd scored hits and she'd scored hits, but between her eyes and whiskers they'd never landed any solid blows on her. She'd always been able to dodge the worst of it, and her regeneration had taken care of the rest.

Of course, her foes had been absorbing her blows pretty well. So it had been a more or less even stalemate, with Ino more at risk as the slightest slip-up on her part would've enabled them to finish her.

Now, with the artillery from Ayame arriving, Ino turned the tables and struck, taking the head off of one attacker with her Lightning Whip in the instant he'd been hit in the back by three kunai. Then it was a swift duck and roll under the slashes of the other two until senbon needles flew into their eyes and Ino was able to turn her twist into a slash, taking off the arms of one guy and gutting the other.

Then, to her shock and amazement, all three of her foes stood up again, including the guy who was lacking a head.

"WHAT IS IT WITH THESE SAND GUYS AND THEIR PUPPETS!!" Ino shrieked out, vein pulsing on her forehead, just as the trio of wooden objects she'd assumed were people resumed their attacks.

Her cry reached up to Baki, who stood, arms folded, conspicuously doing nothing to help either side, on the roof of the half ruined manor house, and the man had to resist the urge to grin.

Some of those Konoha shinobi were good, their kunoichi particularly. He'd been honestly surprised to find so many competent ones among their ranks, among the rising generation especially.

Still, it was expected for them to miss a trick or two from time to time, and it sounded like one of them had just run afoul of how very easy it was for some of Sand's puppet masters to trade places with their creations. Often enough, they did it as the stroke of a sword fell.

It never hurt to have so useful a specialty in your village.

Still, Baki straightened his face out into a stoic mask. Although he felt for both sides, it was vital that he be seen not aiding either. That way, he would not be forced to fight against his comrades, and if the Sand won he could still deliver the message about their replaced Kazekage - a mission more important than any life here, including his own.

Of course, that did not prevent those who saw him from despising his lack of help to their own side. Hana glanced up at the man and sniffed, as if smelling something awful.

Then she went back to slaughtering the trio of Sand genin who'd made the mistake of fighting against her. It was almost pitiful, tearing through their ranks in a Piercing Fang.

Having torn apart their bodies, she stopped spinning and checked for new foes. Standing where she was, her eyes caught sight of a figure out of her range before, and she Body Flickered over in a panic to join him.

Kiba lay at the base of a building, passed out and dying of a combination of wounds and chakra exhaustion, amidst the bodies of three Sand shinobi and Akamaru. The poor dog had been cut in half.

Weeping, Hana held her brother's body to her as he died, unconscious of her desire to hold him and keep him with her causing a strange sucking sensation to occur in the back of her mind.

Meanwhile, Tenten, Anko and Hinata had joined forces against a particularly deadly team from Sand.

--  
Author's Notes:

Sorry folks, I'd meant to have a fight chapter, but it seems to have turned itself into a multi-chapter one.

At least my muse is happy with me. But, aren't girls always when they get their way? (Sorry, bad of me, I know. But it is a fact about boys that they like to tease their girls from time to time. And, even if she IS an anime character, we are on fairly close terms, with her being my muse and all). 


	50. Chapter 50

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty

by Lionheart

Orochimaru knew quite well the composition and strength of the Konoha force. Learning that was one excellent reason for having infiltrated it, after all. And, as their 'Kazekage' he'd had access to the entire village of Sand out of which to select his ambush party for destroying them.

No point using regular ninja when he'd been able to call up the elites. He'd chosen a force he'd felt adequate to wipe out the Konoha party in seconds, including his former teammate, who'd had not one but several ninja selected just on the basis of countering and eventually killing her. Tsunade of the Sannin fought like a bull, but for defeating that you just needed a couple of Matadors.

Sand specialized in such tactics. Just look at their preponderance of puppet users! Orochimaru felt that his former teammate and ally would have fallen soon enough under the combination of "here is the cape, charge at it" (as Kabuto would have used to draw her out of town, if the timeline had gone unaltered) distractions using clones and puppets, and ruthless stabs to the heart that could've been accomplished by, say, having Tsunade's arms chopped off by the iron cloth jonin, and others like her who specialized in an assortment of speedy forms of death. He'd actually had several teams like that selected and tasked only with taking her out.

And it would've worked, too, if not for those meddling kids!

Orochimaru, when he was under disguise as Ebisu, had overheard Kurenai state that Naruto was an up-and-coming legendary shinobi, but that was a boast made so often in certain circles it was meaningless. Any brat could claim to be a future legend or Hokage. In fact, many did claim just that until the sheer load of work involved to get there became apparent. Then those boastful youngsters turned, more often than not, into laid back adults who were more than happy to stay mediocre for the rest of their lives, as that was just far less effort than pursuing their childhood dreams of greatness.

Most who began that path didn't have the winning combination of talent and determination to see it through. Many who did never had the opportunity to try, and most people got stopped before they had the skill, while most aspiring ninja with the qualities died before they had the experience.

Of course, every so often one did slip through who had the traits needed to become a legend. Frequently they got stopped by some obstacle during their rise. Death or serious injury was a reality to ninja, and the death tolls among those just starting out the trade were ferocious, despite natural aptitude. Older shinobi made a point of preying on younger, weaker foes when possible, as the easiest way to pursue their own goals and maintain survivability was to strike at those who typically represented the weakest links - the young.

But you did get the occasional brat who made it through even that stage, and once they reached a certain point it was only a very short trip to become what most only dreamed of - a legend.

What Orochimaru couldn't account for was how Konoha had suddenly gotten so many of them!

The orange brat was clearly leading the pack, but he was far from the only one among those genin he'd previously dismissed as inconsequential to be actively disrupting his plans!

For that matter, it wasn't only the genin that were a problem. Orochimaru had underestimated a number of Konoha's female jonin and chunin. Even his old comrade Tsunade was standing up disturbingly well against what was now a pair of ninja he'd selected specifically to prey against her weaknesses!

By impersonating the Kazekage, he'd had access to Sand's elite shinobi for this little operation, and he'd selected what he felt would be generous for destroying both his former teammate, as well as the rest of these Konoha ninjas.

An illusion/Sand Clone master, plus a stealth/long range attack specialist ought to have been a combination able to confuse, disorient, and defeat her fairly quickly. Yet she might even defeat them. Nor was that the only fight gone contrary to his expectations. There were many of them, too many, in fact. Far too many, and it was disgusting him.

The young things weren't legends yet, but they'd passed all those points that halted the vast majority of aspirants, having displayed a disturbing amount of skill, and yes, experience, particularly considering their overall young age. That made the likelihood of them having the needed talent and determination much higher. He could indeed be looking on young legends in the making.

Orochimaru couldn't think of any thought that could've displeased him more. He was out to DESTROY Konoha! Not watch them rise to greatness on a fresh tide of new legendary shinobi suddenly appearing out of nowhere!

And as far as numbers went, they had more possible legends here than all the previous generations of shinobi legends from Konoha combined! They only had a half dozen or so legends before - and here were twelve nearly-realized potentials!

If even half... Ha! half? If ONE of those should fully realize that potential... No, that was completely unacceptable.

The Snake Sannin had kept Kabuto in place watching over the village chunin exams to keep him informed of any such prodigies as they might appear. To have so many reveal themselves so suddenly, just in time to thwart him on this attack, smacked of either incompetence or disloyalty on his spy's part.

Neither would be tolerated.

"That's IT!" Anko shouted, dodging a blow aimed toward her face even as she ranted, striking back on her opponent. "This in depth planning thing has gone on far enough. It's causing our situational awareness to ROT! We need to be more ready for surprises than this! From now on, Every Other Reset has got to include something where we practice causing events we're unprepared for!"

Tenten wished she could disagree. But she couldn't.

They'd formed a trio with Hinata and driven like a spearhead toward their clan's tigers, who'd been blocked inside of their stables in the same way that the attackers had tried blocking the girls inside the bath - filling up the entry way with a solid plug of stone.

That should not have been a problem for the shinobi seeking to rescue their mounts and companions. And, indeed, it wasn't. No, the problem came from the particularly deadly Sand team that had encountered them on the way.

Hinata was currently nursing her hand, the flesh of which was partially dissolved, as if she'd dunked it in acid. The guy she'd struck wasn't terribly happy, either, in fact he was down for the count, but even her regeneration was struggling to restore the damage she'd caused herself by hitting him, and she was forced to assist that with medical techniques she knew.

And that was a problem, because two more of that guy's buddies stood there opposed to them, and all three, both the two standing and the one on the ground, gave off auras of a sickening green mist that sizzled and dripped, and striking through that had partially dissolved Hinata's hand.

Countless bloodlines, major and minor, abounded in the elemental countries. Some were trivial, with no observable benefits, just some outward mark like having pink hair. Others were so great they had helped determine the fates of the Elemental Countries, and wars had been risked, or fought, over their possession.

Konoha had certainly taken the cream of the crop of the big name bloodlines, but that did not mean there weren't more humble ones out there. And while there were other, flashier bloodlines, more famous ones surely, the village of Sand did have it's share of the lesser ones.

Contrary to some expectations, not everyone who had a functioning bloodline ability became a ninja, either. There was a rather large family, too loosely associated to be called a clan, of farmers in Fire country whose ability was just to compost weeds faster. They still had to cut or kill them normally, but once dead they could rot them into perfect fertilizer in an instant.

It was not something that lent itself well to ninja combat. Oh, there were those who'd adapted worse things into advantages, the originators of the precious Hyuga bloodline ability way back when had been doctors before the Gentle Fist style had been developed (something that the Chakra Scalpel technique those medics had learned is said to have had a part in). But, once it came right down to it, that was a risky leap to take, to go from being prosperous civilians among the best at their trade to being lackluster ninja who might well be killed before developing anything useful.

That was a switch not many who'd tried it survived.

Most bloodlines required a great amount of work to fully adapt to ninja duties. The members of the Kishimoto Clan facing off against the trio of Konoha kunoichi being a good example - they destroyed everything they touched, and while you'd think that would be a terribly advantageous thing for a ninja to do, it had some significant drawbacks.

The clan had moved to Sand because, out in those deserts, there was little for them to destroy, and so no outraged neighbors to get upset that they'd cut a swath through a cornfield or whatever, leaving behind a trench of dead plants and poisoned earth just by passing by.

In an oddball kind of synthesis, they also fed on what they destroyed, so they did not starve. However, they could not, for example, use pieces of standard ninja equipment.

So, while any foe striking them with a hand, kick, or sword in combat would generally lose that limb or weapon, dissolving on contact with the Kishimoto, that would do little to preserve the recipient's life, as the Kishimoto could not wear protective armor or wield weapons of their own to block blows with.

Their martial arts also were generally not the best, as they lacked sparring partners. And forget getting them any doctors should a Kishimoto be injured in practice. It was just not going to happen.

The village had long ago begun research into ceramics for weapons and armor that would not dissolve at the touch of their acid, but that research had ceased when Sand's funding had taken a sharp dive. The Kishimoto would've loved to have continued the work themselves, but as they could not marry anyone but their own siblings (as anyone else would literally dissolve in their embrace) their intelligence had taken a sharp dive over the generations. So they were unable.

Thus, a clan whose bloodline may very well have competed with the Uchiha for prominence had remained fairly obscure and unremarkable through the years. They couldn't even be sent on most missions, as leaving a trail of destruction wherever they went made stealth completely impossible. So they had to be left out of ambush scenarios and the like.

And they were hard to treat like regular ninja, as it was nearly impossible to test them, or figure out how they could be paid. Training them had its own set of difficulties. However, for fighting people like Tsunade they were close to ideal, and that was why Orochimaru had called them up.

Staring at the three Kishimoto, clad only in loincloths woven out of their own hair, Anko realized that, if it weren't for the support group hiding behind them, Tenten alone could've blown through these destructo-zombies with a couple of thrown kunai they could've easily afforded to lose.

But when the enemy had a wind mistress on their side, you couldn't rely too much on thrown weapons. Put an Earth master in there, shielding them with walls and other techniques as needed, and there wasn't a great deal you could do they couldn't counter.

As an unusual twist, the Earth guy was also a puppet master.

Anko finished smashing down the latest combat puppet sent against her by slapping it with a dozen explosive tags and kicking it back into the midst of the acid-dripping guys. But a quick wall of earth contained the explosion, so it did not take out any of the Sand ninja, as she'd hoped it might.

The special jonin put her hands on her hips, surveying the Kishimoto caught in Tenten's Sticky Capture Field. "If we could blow past these guys in front, their support team almost wouldn't matter."

"Hah! Don't count on it, girl!" called the opposing wind mistress from behind the earth guy's wall. "Our Kishimoto would eat you alive!"

"You mean they EAT what they dissolve? Like human flesh? That's GROSS!" Tenten's attention was almost totally focused on constantly renewing her Sticky Capture Field, as her foes were just as quickly dissolving it. But that little nugget of disgusting information caused her attention to waver and her corrosive foes lurched forward a step before she could recapture them.

That had left Anko to be dealing with puppets and countering wind techniques while Hinata was busy healing her hand. Tossing her hair, the special jonin posed, countering yet another wind attack. "Actually, I think the creepiest thing about these acid guys is I've heard that, having no skill themselves, they're all Uchiha fangirls and Sharingan worshipers."

"Now that's just sad," Tenten shook her head in pity.

Hinata had recovered her hand enough to where the regular regeneration had taken over. So, shaking it out, she threw a single senbon needle toward her foes. It flew by, missing by a country mile to stick in the Suna's earth wall.

"Ha! Not even worth blocking, girl! You ought to work on your aim a little!" the opposing wind mistress called out.

"Ding! Ding!"

A careful tug on a thin wire made the bells attached to that senbon ring.

"What was that?" the wind mistress panicked, feeling something she couldn't easily identify.

The Konoha team smiled.

Yugao panted. Scowling at her newest opponent, she muttered, "I swear, this den mother stuff isn't worth it. I can't even count on a good snuggling after stuff like this to keep me sane. Maybe I should..."

"Don't!" Kin interrupted from behind her, throwing another barrage of kunai. "You haven't made it a hundred resets yet! I bet on you making it! I BELIEVED in you! Don't let me down!"

The two Sand ninja stared at them in disbelief they'd choose a moment like this to talk about something like that.

Ignoring their ire, the swordswoman chuckled. "So, what do you forfeit?"

Kin blushed red. "I.. uh, I'd rather not say. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Yugao agreed, before sliding into a Sixty Four Palms strike on her opponent, knocking him out and flying, all of his chakra points closed. She continued talking casually as she moved on to the next one. "But it won't stop me from giving up early, if I want to."

"NOOOOOOOO!!" Kin wailed.

As the lead jonin of the Sand team, the guy had a ton of chakra. Naturally, however, Naruto had more.

Although, if he hadn't been surprised, this fight would've gone better.

"How do you keep that up?" the blond boy asked, as the two combatants were panting, staring at each other across the tortured battlefield. While he still had chakra, the boy was physically exhausted, and wounded in enough places that his regeneration was struggling to keep up.

Even his unreal stamina had limits, and he'd reached those a while ago. The Sand guy's Earth Dragon had wrecked fearsome slaughter among Naruto's clones, even hitting Naruto himself a couple of times.

The one time he'd seen Kakashi use a technique like that, a Water Dragon, it had just lunged at the target and blown apart, like hitting him with a hose or a wave: not terribly effective. But this Earth Dragon had behaved more like a wild animal, rending and tearing, crushing and killing, destroying all in its path, all the while staying completely under the control of the guy who'd created it.

Almost like a summon, actually. Or a puppet (which would explain things).

Dang thing hadn't had any internal organs, either, so blowing holes in it with a Thousand Birds was of limited utility. It had been an immense amount of work to put that dragon down, a job not made the least bit better by the jonin who'd created it still flinging about jutsu the entire time!

Naruto honestly hadn't believed any ordinary person had that much chakra.

"Ha! Not all bloodlines are the Sharingan, boy!" the jonin replied scornfully. "It may not be much in the minds of an Uchiha or a Hyuga, but my clan can store up our chakra for a whole WEEK before a fight! That's seven times the chakra capacity of any ninja of equal training, even if our recovery of it isn't any faster than normal. Now my question to you: How is it you've managed to keep up with ME? You aren't a lost nephew or cousin of mine, are you?"

"Heh, not likely," Naruto panted, hands on his knees as he fought to get his breath back, watching some of his wounds visibly knit. "But what if I were?"

"What's your name, boy?"

"Uzumaki."

"Hmm," the jonin considered, before rising up and settling back into a stance. "You look nothing like her, but I may have known your mother, kid. Sorry, no relation, just refugees from the same defunct village."

"That's alright," Naruto drew himself up straight, assuming a martial arts stance, and secretly glad this had been solely a battle of elemental jutsu so far - his best skill, and given his body's development limitations, the one area where he could compete with a jonin on anything close to equal terms. Then, of course, he had regeneration and unreal stamina to deal with all the times and places he'd fallen short in their fight, like getting hit by an enormous dragon. "I don't suppose you'd tell me your name, now?"

"Sorry, kid. I don't like making friends with people I'm about to kill. Poor business procedure."

"I understand."

"EARTH DRAGON!" a voice cried out far to his left, and Naruto glanced over to see the jonin coming to the end of a long string of handseals and shouting to get a little extra push for shoving a big technique through on low chakra.

Eyes snapped back to the figure opposite him, to see it grinning, just before it disappeared. Both versions of the jonin had been deliberately standing just outside range of his White Eyes (having learned that radius during the battle) and Naruto fought the urge to slap his forehead. He'd been talking to a CLONE! Of all the stupid techniques to fall for!

The ground rumbled as the new dragon started to materialize, only to stop and crumble back to the earth as Ino emerged from the rough bark of an illusionary tree behind the jonin and lopped his head off...

... then his arms, then his legs, and chopped the chest in half just to make sure.

Apparently she'd been fighting a few puppets lately.

Naruto sagged to the ground, exhausted, wounds still partially healed.

She ran up as he collapsed to his hands and knees. Smiling weakly for her, he panted, "Thanks."

"No problem, honey. You had it worse than the rest of us." She wiped his forehead with a damp cloth, then smiled for him. "Thank you for occupying that guy for so long."

The boy nodded. If there was one thing he could still do better than anyone else, it was to take damage from a big, scary monster of an enemy shinobi while everyone else positioned for finishing that guy off.

It wasn't a fun job, but he could do it.

And, of course, the whole job got even less fun than that when his support group got distracted, being drawn into fights of their own. "Sorry we didn't come sooner," Ino apologized, looking contrite.

Naruto smiled, brushing a trail of blood from her cheek with the back of his hand. "Yeah, well, you were busy."

"That's not an excuse you'd ever give us. I'm sorry," she bent down and kissed him.

On recovering his breathing room, he sat up, struggling to stand. "No, it's alright. Guy kept it mostly to a jutsu fight. Only kind of fighting I've got where I can match pace with a jonin. Gai would've thrashed me."

"Not fair, comparing yourself to him." Ino pouted, teasing. "Can you name even one person who can match him in a fist fight?"

"Uh, no? Lee comes closest, but..."

"The student has not yet surpassed the master on that one," Ino agreed, assisting Naruto to his feet, sliding his arm around her shoulders before they both started stumbling off towards shelter, already spent.

"Your feet are a mess," she observed, after they'd gone a short ways.

Naruto chuckled tiredly. "Yeah. Guy kept blowing up everything I created to stand on, and stopped getting fooled by wires."

"Couldn't you do anything to protect your feet?"

The tired boy shook his head. "I tried Water Walking, but sand must work different. Heh, I even tried those chakra pads we use for crossing our Sticky Capture Fields - no luck. They still let my feet sink into the loose sand and onto those needles of his."

"I'm not surprised. Those pads are paper thin, only supposed to keep you from making contact and getting stuck on the glue." She sighed, then shot him a bright, if somewhat tired smile. "Still, I can't believe you won't have developed something to work on by the next time we reset!"

There came a roar, and both looked up just in time to see the dome Naruto had created to shelter the battlefield get smashed open by Manda, the giant serpent summons of Orochimaru.

"That may come sooner than we thought," Naruto whispered.

The storm came whistling in even as the chunks of his former rampart fell.

Sakura was still in the bath, huddled in fear, able to see everything out of the semi-transparent wall now that the sandstorm had ceased, and shocked down to her toenails by the performance of Naruto and the other girls.

Her top still hung open from when she'd flashed Naruto, unnoticed by her as all her attention was focused on the fighting going on outside.

"Naruto! Summon Gamabunta!" Tsunade shouted, having only just crushed both of her attackers under her giant slug summons.

"I CAN'T!!" the boy shouted back.

"WHAAAT?!" came several astonished female shouts, as hair toinged out.

"It takes all day to get that crazy toad to accept me as a summoner! Then he has to be convinced to fight for me! I only ever bother anymore when I know we have a big fight coming up!" Naruto shouted back.

Manda lunged.

Orochimaru laughed.

The problem with slugs and toads in a desert environment was that both creatures had smooth, moist skin that dried out easily, especially in dry, hot winds. And both those creatures also DIED if they dried out too completely, something deserts were very good at doing, and to which their skins made them both especially vulnerable.

There was an exception in the form of horned toads, which could manage just fine in desert environments, but those did NOT make up the majority of Jiraiya's summons, or even his most frequent or useful ones.

Slugs had no chance.

While ordinarily, Orochimaru would not have engaged Tsunade in a summons battle, here the territory favored him against her.

Virtually all of combat was like a giant game of scissors, rock, paper: "A trumps B, B trumps C, but C trumps A." That was a vastly simplified version of it, but the process was the same.

One key to the legendary sannin was their team had an excellent example of each major field of ninja combat ability, all wrapped together in one tight team. Each one had been strong where the others had weaknesses, and by covering for each other, they could defeat virtually all who opposed them.

Of course, that team had since been broken up. And Orochimaru, knowing of Tsunade's weaknesses, had plotted specifically to prey upon those in the teams he'd arranged to defeat her.

If she'd been, say B, then he'd loaded up the ambush group with all of the C he'd felt they would need and then some. If she'd been as he'd remembered her, they ought to have defeated her easily.

Only, it hadn't worked out that way. So he'd opened a summons battle, hoping to overcome her in another way.

As the wounded kept pouring in, Temari was simply kicking herself for not having included the various Sand Village techniques in their training regimen before this. Sure, there were loads of ninja fighting out there, but if her husband and sisters had known how to fight on this territory they could've done more, much faster.

And that would've resolved the whole thing.

It was their specialized environmental techniques and training that made ninja from Suna so dangerous on their home terrain. It also explained why Hidden Sand was a major power, despite inability to destroy Konoha in Orochimaru's ambush invasion. The attack jutsu that worked so well in Suna territory were just about impossible to practice in Leaf territory.

But, on the other hand, trying to tackle Suna in their own environment was suicide (even without Gaara using the entire landscape as a weapon against you), unless you were the ridiculously powerful kind of ninja that make up the members of Akatsuki, or had knowledge of the land's defenses.

That attack on Konoha had still slaughtered so many ninja that the Great Leaf would've suffered a crippling shortage of upper level ninja for a long while afterwards. But Sand really wasn't their strongest on attack. No, their territorial advantage made them strongest on defense, and they were out there using that for all it was worth.

So Sand pressed hard, feeling they still had the advantage, but Konoha was fighting back ferociously, knowing this had been a peace mission and angry over this betrayal, so eager to get their teeth into their enemy.

As it stood now, both sides were bleeding down. The Konoha side had gotten kicked in the nuts from the outset, so was fighting at far below their usual ability, disadvantaged due to surprise and the sheer number of wounded. While her friends and allies from Sand were finding the Kitsune Clan a hard nugget to chew, and their ambush was choking on it.

The ninja from Konoha were grim and bloody, after revenge for this betrayal, and the Sand felt they were defending their home. But if either side had a clear advantage the loser would've withdrawn.

As it was, each side felt they could pull off a victory, and were still out there grinding each other to pieces.

It shouldn't have had to be like this!

Suna only wanted war with Konoha in the first place because the daimyo from Wind country was an idiot and messed with the balance of power between the two ninja villages!

Temari, AND all the clones she could create, were simply up to her armpits in wounded, friends from both sides, and wanted to cry her eyes out, but couldn't spare the time.

Naruto's clones were popping. He couldn't hold any of them up in the face of that storm.

The glass blades had been bad, but at least there he'd had some control over where he put his feet, and could sometimes arrange safe things to stand on. With this sandstorm, it wasn't that way, and he had no such option.

Wind whipped sand abraded skin and exposed flesh. It caused only a very little damage compared to say, a kunai thrust or a fireball, but Shadow Clones were not capable of sustaining any damage at all before dispersing. Since the storm covered virtually anywhere he might create them, they died the moment they came into existence.

"Dang it! I should have prepared more!" Naruto shouted.

"Shove it!" Anko rebuked him, eyes blazing as she wrapped her own injuries, trying to help out her regeneration so she could rejoin the fight when he was ready. Stupid Kishimoto had nearly wiped her out of the picture! "We're ninja! Surprises are the aim of every operation! Both for us, and for our enemies! Even when we do everything correctly sometimes they'll happen to us, like it or not! Deal with it!"

The pair of them were presently too wounded to fight effectively, so they'd been forced to take a short break to recover. Better a great deal of aid, slightly late, than being on time but no help at all.

She looked out into the storm, and the giant summons battle. "Besides, there was nothing more I can think of that you could've done."

"I could've set some traps..." the boy grumbled, knowing that any Shadow Clone guards would've been popped by this sandstorm before they knew there was anything suspicious about it.

Anko snorted. "Sorry, kid. But any trap sensitive enough to go off on a ninja this storm would've triggered for you. We would've heard them going off and thought nothing of it, knowing the wind would do that. And if you set passive traps, shifting sands blown by those winds would've either buried or exposed them. You might as well dig pits in water as in that sand, the way the wind's got it shifting and blowing about out there!"

She directed a kind smile to him, looking slightly odd on the face of such a hardened ninja. "And what else could you have done? Set explosive tags? The wind would've torn them away in seconds. What could you attach them to so they wouldn't? Sand that's already blowing around? Or create great big rocks to stick them to? I'm sure those ninja native to this environment wouldn't have found anything suspicious about those. Face it kid, you don't know how to trap a desert to catch Suna shinobi. Neither do I."

She crossed her arms and stared out into the storm. "This was a peace envoy between allied villages, yet we had walls and guard towers, hidden huts and everything we knew how to do that did not go to ridiculously extreme lengths. If anything, we were over-prepared. They just knew how to trump everything we'd done. That's not our fault. It happens sometimes. Either you live with it and roll with the blow, or you don't."

Her smile grew sad, and her expression serious. "But, either way, eating yourself up over stuff you couldn't change doesn't make for a great ninja, kid. Only for a burn-out. You've seen Kakashi? Classic burn-out case, still wrapped up around events that occurred a long time ago. Don't go that route. In the time loops, we can change things like this. But we won't always have that ability. Learn how to accept things like this now, before it's too late. Konoha doesn't need another 'has been' shinobi. Don't waste your potential, which is great, worrying over what might have been. Okay?"

An explosion occurred outside that shook their meager shelter, but Anko didn't even wince. "We knew Snake-face was near Konoha, on his way to Sound, at the time we sent the messenger bird, so he shouldn't have been anyplace near where he'd have been able to prevent Suna from receiving it. Somehow he managed to do so and pull off this ambush anyway. That's an espionage triumph on his part, not a fault on ours."

Anko thoughtfully tapped her lips. "Although, that does prove that we haven't caught onto all of his spies yet. So, in a way, this victory is going to turn around and bite him, as we won't stop looking until we find whoever we missed on our previous sweeps."

Naruto was crying, only part of that was grit in his eyes. "Why did we use a BIRD? Why couldn't we just radio ahead?"

"Do you know how to make a radio?" she asked sternly.

"Uh, no." He was taken aback.

"No one does." She looked back out into the storm, arms crossed below her breasts. "All of the technology we use is summoned, then we use it until it breaks. It all comes out of parallel dimensions or stuff, like your giant toads. No one knows how to create those things, and we don't exactly have good control over what we get, either. We just try to make do with what does arrive. Asking for reliable large scale equipment networks made out of the patchwork stuff that does arrive is out of the question. About the best we can do is keep our batteries charged. Heck, half of what we summon are mismatched socks!"

Naruto scowled, finding he had a new goal. Raising his face to Anko, he broke into a grin. "So, how do we get any stuff at all?"

Anko shrugged. "Seal experts go fishing, designing scrolls asking for general concepts of 'Give me something that does this, and this, and has these qualities.' Most of the time it's a stab in the dark. It's also expensive to try, and most of what DOES appear seems to depend on resources we don't have in order to function. So we tend to stick to simple basics, things we know from experience we can get, and don't get too adventurous. The last time a seal expert asked for 'an ultimate weapon' his village went up in a fireball so huge it formed a mushroom cloud that incinerated the entire province."

Naruto's eyes had gone wide.

His special jonin bride smirked at this reaction, and supplied, "Every village has a couple of experts who do this full time, and we still don't have any idea how all this works. Most of the scrolls made don't even work to pull out stuff we KNOW exists, so some have postulated an infinite number of parallel worlds, only some of which have any technology to summon. Ours certainly doesn't produce any, and there is no way of telling beforehand what world you're tapping into. But even the same scroll used by the same master won't grab the same thing every time he activates it. Things like those matched radio sets Kakashi gave Team 7 had to have cost him a fortune." She snorted disdainfully, uncrossing her arms and pushing away from the wall. "But it wouldn't have done Sasuke any good to be the only one on the team with a short range radio, now would it?"

--  
Author's Notes:

Wow! Fifty! There were times I didn't really expect it to go ten!

I've never read before any good explanation for the completely inconsistent levels of technology displayed in the show, where they have residential electrical wires and pole mounted transformers one moment, and are using ox drawn carts the next. Or why they abound in the products of an industrial society (styrofoam instant ramen containers, modern clothing fabrics, life support machinery, and sunglasses to name a few), without any observable signs of the industrialization required for producing them.

So this is my best stab at an appropriate reason: They summon the stuff they need (and that would include sewing machines for customizing clothing).

Oh, and before anyone asks what Gaara's been doing, he shows up with an explanation in the next chapter.

Omake (this is the sort of scene my muse lets me work on when we're doing well together):

The blond boy working on the latest scroll felt a short surge of chakra, but after that... nothing.

Disappointed, he went back to work.

"Ch ch ch. Say, uh, what's up Doc?"

Naruto shook his head without looking up. "I'm working on a new summoning scroll. So far, nothing."

"Ch ch ch." The newly arrived person chewed for a moment on his carrot, leaning over the young boy's head to see. "Say, that looks like some kind of Rabbit summoning scroll you got dere."

"Is that what this is?" Naruto picked up the scroll to see, peering at it closely.

A new figure stepped up to Naruto's left, joining the grey one already standing on his right. "Awfully unsporting of me to show up without being invited like this, I know," the new guy proclaimed. "But really, you ought to be working on Duck summoning."

"Rabbit summoning," the grey guy with the long ears replied calmly.

"Duck summoning!" the new guy with orange beak insisted.

"Rabbit summoning."

"DUCK summoning!"

"Rabbit summoning."

"DUCK SUMMONING!" the guy in black was jumping up and down now.

"DUCK summoning," the grey one with the ears disagreed calmly.

"RABBIT SUMMONING! And that's FINAL!" the humanoid duck shouted, before disappearing in a puff of smoke and chakra.

Suddenly the scroll in Naruto's hands writhed about to address the guy with the ears. "You're dessssspicable!" 


	51. Chapter 51

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-One

by Lionheart

..I-I..

The flow of patients had lifted somewhat as the battle switched to a higher gear, with most of those unable to participate in a giant summons battle taking cover and shelter as far away from that fight as possible. Still, all things had kind of blended into a medical haze when Temari got handed yet another patient in what seemed an unending stream of them.

Something about this one shook her out of her hardworking stupor.

"Hey, Shizune? Have you ever seen a smaller willie?" She held the object up between two fingers, having had her attention directed to the object as it was so near the wounded area which had been presented to her by a nurse.

The sannin's apprentice looked over, and blinked. "No. Not in all my years of medical experience. Wow! I've seen three-year-olds packing more meat! In fact, I think I've delivered newborns with as much," she was being, as was the habit of women, extremely frank talking over naughty subjects when it was just 'the girls' present.

Comatose patients didn't count.

"Yeah. Look at it! One of the knuckles on my middle finger is bigger. It's like a tiny grain of rice!" Temari giggled naughtily.

"Whose is it?" Shizune asked. Both women leaned over to look at the face, then relaxed with bored expressions.

"Well, that explains it," Shizune dismissed the subject.

Temari nodded. "Yeah. Really, it's what you'd expect, frankly."

Sasuke groaned in his enforced slumber.

..I-I..

The storm was a mess. Anyone going out in it would find their eyes instantly filled with grit and dust. It was like opening them underwater and expecting them not to get wet, there was that much sand in the air.

From their shelter in a ruined hut, Naruto was scowling out into it.

"Still thinking you should have seen this coming?" Anko teased, then huffed. "You couldn't, not unless you want to spook at every cloud in the sky, every drop of rain, every falling leaf, and every ray of sunshine. Weather happens, kid. You can't spook at every breeze. It just happens that breezes out on a desert pick up sand. You could no more have anticipated this sandstorm was an attack than you could stop it from happening in the first place."

Her husband shook his head. "No, that's not it at all. I can accept that. You made your point earlier, and I believe it." Then he grinned. "Now I was just thinking of how to rejoin combat."

His wife looked back down to his feet, which gaps in the bandages revealed were still ground up like hamburger. Clones of his were busy applying medical techniques to both his feet and her wounds, but it was slow going, as damage was quite extensive in both cases. "Uh, Naruto. You aren't fighting until you can stand without assistance."

But he answered her with a foxy grin that said otherwise.

They were taking shelter fairly far from the manor house, but there were a number of empty or ruined examples of his submerged stone huts nearby, and he knew where those were, having created them.

Naruto formed a seal (showing how tired he was, as he typically had no need of them for his frequently used techniques) to create a few hundred Shadow Clones, filling those empty or ruined buildings nearby. Then they all went to work using crafting jutsu he'd invented to help out in his various trade skills to build themselves a small army of puppets.

Boulder Aggregation, as used by Ayame to turn sand to stone for the resort, was instead used to form limbs and bodies, spears and armor. Techniques Naruto had created for drawing metal out of the earth to supply his forges functioned surprisingly well out here, providing him with material for joints, and to strengthen and reinforce the puppets' bodies, armor and weapons.

Puppet use was not an art he'd developed as much as some others, but he HAD learned how to use puppet techniques from Kankuro, who was a master.

Using a clone army under shelter to control them, it was no issue to have an equal number of puppets under his command - and puppets were not subject to the same kind of damage issues as his clones, so they could operate out in that storm.

So Naruto sent his puppet army out into the battle, reactivating their White Eyes so he could follow them, and inadvertently rediscovering how Sandsight had led Suna to better puppet techniques, as the puppet masters could hide better - an initial advantage they had expanded on greatly in the years since.

The puppets were jerky, it was not something he'd practiced much, but in the conditions of conflict which had so far prevailed, they were near-perfect grunt soldiers. Their stone feet and bodies couldn't care less about needles of razor sharp glass in the sands. Their metal joints were robust and simple enough not to clog in the omnipresent dust. Their controllers could see through the fog of powder with their variant of the Hyuga bloodline, and the tide of the small ninja battles began to turn in Konoha's favor as these extra soldiers went out, as their small weight made an enormous difference.

Naruto grinned, and suddenly his puppet army shimmered, as basic clones of the puppets intermingled with those puppets, to deny an enemy an easy idea of which were real and to avoid, or could be harmed.

Just liked he'd practiced with his Shadow Clones.

Manda brought down one of his coils onto a group of Naruto's puppets, only to discover the fifty long spears held by those puppets driven through his scaly hide by the force of his own strength brought down on them.

The snake shrieked at the unexpected injury, and the puppets got up again, having failed to be smashed in the deep, soft sands.

..I-I..

Ino and Hinata stood fighting back to back against long odds, as one of the few perimeter defense forces of the now-ruined manor that could venture out any distance at all from those walls.

Their eyes were both closed, to keep out blowing sand, but their special vision was also active, so it didn't matter, as they could see through their own eyelids.

A puppet lunged at Hinata, only to get blown away by a Fireball. Lightning was unreliable in this atmosphere, as it kept getting diverted by clouds of metal dust to drain away harmlessly into the ground.

"Well, at least we've settled the age-old question," Ino joked to her friend, ducking a Wind Blade that had nearly cut off her head and replying with a Pressure Bullet. "Lightning is actually quite weak against Earth! If this were a lightning storm I could still throw around dirt techniques no problem! But here we are in a sandstorm, and I can't get a Thunderlance, Thunder Punch, Lightning Whip, or even our Electrical Aura Armor to stay up even a second!"

Wires exploded out of the ground, trying to entrap and entangle the girls, who both dodged separate directions.

Hinata responded by launching a Phoenix Flower technique off into the dust after the ninja who were hunting them, the multiple balls of fire (concealing shuriken, for a surprise secondary attack) were actually a distraction. They pulled attention away from the fact that Hinata had slipped underground and left an illusionary clone behind her.

It allowed her to get close enough to a group of their attackers to spring forth out of the ground, shouting, "Dango Stick Fu!" and pepper them with the sharp wooden candy skewers, the points of all of which had been rolled in mushroom poisons able to kill Naruto himself.

A full dozen of their attackers dropped dead in that instant.

Ino Body Flickered in to cover Hinata's back before the last bodies had even fallen. It was dangerous out there, and they liked to keep their attackers at a distance. It was a departure from their usual fighting style, but conditions were bad for the close fighting stuff.

The wind constantly played with their whiskers, triggering those so often with fake signals that any real warning got drowned out in the fog of useless ones. So that precious resource was denied them. Similarly, wind was LOUD, and the howling of it drowned out most other noises, rendering their sensory advantage slim indeed.

Ino and Hinata were both excellent close combat fighters, but their relied too heavily on advantages that no longer applied here. That left them to rely on the strength of their young bodies as much as anything, and that had been unchanged from the moment of the first resets. The extra strength and speed their bloodline granted was the only thing making them contestants in a close-up fight. So, once again, it was wise to keep their opponents at a distance, when they could.

The girls looked up in disbelief at the jumps made by a quartet of Sand ninja. Now ninja normally jumped high and far, but these were unbelievable, and the course they were on for landing would drop the falling chunks of armor and muscle atop those girls.

They sprang out of the way themselves, rolling to get better positions.

"Great," Ino joked, drawing her swords and seeing the wicked, serrated edges of the sickles their opponents standing up out of the impact craters wielded double, one in each hand. "Close combat types. Might we have the pleasure of knowing your names?"

"We are Mantis Clan," the lead of the four stated.

"Well, that explains the green body armor, I guess," Ino shrugged playfully.

..I-I..

Out in the summon's battle zone Manda had the slug boss Katsuyu in its coils, for the second time at least, Katsuyu having escaped once already.

Now neither Naruto, nor his clones (which were exact physical copies of him) could stand due to recent wounds. However, that did NOT prevent him from drawing on more Earth jutsu to expand their recently collapsed shelter into something with a bit more room... and tons and tons of arrow slits.

Arrow slits, with more new shadow clones behind them. Clones who unsealed bows out of storage scrolls, and fired off a hail of wire-guided arrows in a swarm at the presently stalemated giant beasts.

The scale of boss summons were so huge their eyes were as tall as a man. It was easy, at that scale, to ignore small things as immaterial. Manda had a hide thicker than most swords were long. The snake had little to fear from most human threats. The sandstorm was also blocking its vision, but at its size, those grains of sand were merely dust that had no abrasive power, just an irritant dealt with normally by a slight watering of the eyes.

So the giant serpent summon did not see, or care to see, the swarm of tiny arrows approach until it was already too late, and hundreds had sunk into each of the animal's two eyes, rupturing them to gush forth black fluid and permanently blind the creature.

Manda, unable to see and thrashing about in pain from its injury, did not see to dodge Katsuyu's Acid of One Thousand Fangs technique, and the spray hit to start dissolving scales and the flesh underneath.

Orochimaru, who had until now been observing this fight with some degree of vengeful satisfaction, uncrossed his arms to stare at his summon. Opening his mouth to give orders, he got cut off by a giant head coming out of the spraying grit and biting through Manda's neck.

Eyes followed the giant reptilian attacker back from where it had just slain his serpent to an equally giant tortoise shell, upon which stood Gai and Lee. The ninja's feet were heavily bandaged, but they stood proud, arms crossed and wearing goggles they'd found somewhere as the tortoise boss summon they stood on bit down further and decapitated Manda.

Gai actually had the nerve to laugh! "Ha ha ha! Orochimaru! I sought out this summon to defeat yours! A tortoises shell is impervious to the bite of all serpents! And their snapping jaws are equally quick!" The jonin posed to point at the traitor. "You can only fail against the might of Konoha!"

Lee shouted, raising a fist skyward, "We are in the springtime of our youth!"

Tsunade palmed her face. How many times had that jonin kept back that vital summon while Orochimaru ravaged Konoha? She didn't know if she should blame the jonin for believing too much in the Will of Fire triumphing without it, or his desire to shield Lee's dreams of becoming a great ninja without chakra by not using any special techniques around him. But it was probably both.

They'd have to cure Lee's chakra coils more often just so the jonin would use his summon more often!

Then a giant scorpion, easily as large as the boss turtle, appeared, with a Sand jonin wearing red armor standing in between the creature's eyes.

A scowling Orochimaru also summoned four more giant snakes. None were as large or formidable as Manda had been, but they were enough to counter Katsuyu, as the slug summon was already tiring from its injuries, and nearly dried out by the moisture-sucking winds.

..I-I..

The Sand shinobi were almost as tired and worn down by this fighting as the ones from Leaf. There weren't a great many who still had usable amounts of fight left in them. Then again, the ones from Leaf had, by and large, fared no better. If anything, the damage taken by Konoha shinobi had been worse.

Yugao and Hana had been better prepared than most for this conflict, and had borne the brunt of more than their share of it.

"We're getting our tails handed to us!" Yugao shouted over the winds, as she helped the other Angel move towards shelter. The fight had gone out of Hana. Even her dogs were worried about her.

Hana's cheeks, moist from crying, now had sand particles stuck to them covering her facial tattoos. "I know!"

Yugao ventured a shrug. "Still, one can't be too surprised by that; after all, how often do we get to do any sort of fighting against a force that we haven't cataloged fairly well by now, this far into the resets?"

The ANBU tried a laugh. "I guess I would be worried if that weren't the case! But I guess we are getting a chance to see that there are some holes in our training that still need work."

Hana's eyes widened. "Look out!" she shouted.

The two Body Flickered to safety right before Manda's corpse came crashing down on top of where they'd been.

..I-I..

Neji was stationed among the outer guards for the ruined manor that provided what shelter there was for the pathetic remnants of the Konoha peace envoy, using his activated bloodline to stare out through the walls to watch for approaching danger.

The boy was also deeply confused.

It was his peculiar job on this mission to watch over Hinata, and he had done so. But he was increasingly confused about how to react to his 'weak' cousin. Because the Hinata he saw out there was anything but weak.

He watched as she used wires and smoke bombs (something that he, himself, would not have thought of, as sight was already largely occluded for those not of his bloodline. However, the Sand shinobi could evidently see through the dust, but could not see through her smoke. Thus, in the moments before the wind whipped it away, she could disguise her actions from them with it. It was, he reflected quite grudgingly a stroke of genius) to subdue an enemy several times her own size and send him careening over to the ruined manor, where the Konoha ninja guards could take care of finishing him.

Which they did with gusto, eager for some measure of revenge.

She next produced a long chain and proceeded to fight with it, deflecting the sickles of two opponents until one grasped her chain and tore it from her, whereupon Hinata Body Flickered away, and a subsequent explosion revealed that her weapon had been covered in explosive tags, which she detonated at a distance, and as trap for the one who'd disarmed her.

These were not the acts of a weakling.

No, Neji reflected quite soberly. They were instead the acts of a strong ninja. The question then became, what had happened to Hinata? If he did not see her with his own illusion-penetrating eyes, he could not have believed it was her.

So, what had triggered this change?

..I-I..

"What's left?" Ino shouted over the force of the storm, as her hand came up empty from her ammo pouch. Throwing kunai trailing explosive tags had been their best bet and mainstay for the past little while.

Hinata was shaking her head. "I'm out! And nearly out of chakra!"

"Let's fall back!" Ino suggested, before jumping up out of the way of one of the two remaining Mantis fighters. "These guys are just too fast for their size! They're built like houses and move like vipers!"

Suddenly a chain came flying out and wrapped around the blonde's ankle. The girl barely had time to look up to see the Mantis who had snagged her lifting his sickle high in the other to skewer her dead, dead, dead.

"Mind/Body Transfer!" she called out after forming a swift handseal.

The sickle had come down and lodged in her belt buckle, just barely scraping the skin of Ino's body before her mind, now in command of the Mantis guy, was able to stop the downward force of the blow.

Luckily, she'd shown enough mastery of the basic version for her family to finally show her a faster one!

The body Ino controlled then whipped around and lodged its sickle into the back and spine of the other remaining Mantis, who had just caught Hinata and was strangling her with his own chain, since she'd already broken his sickle.

..I-I..

Both sides were running out of weapons, chakra, and warriors. The Konoha team had some help from the medics running inside their ruined building, but that did little more than compensate for the initial disadvantage.

Sakura had long since been humbled by this demonstration, as she'd always based her confidence in her ninja skills on the fact that she'd always been better than Naruto.

Now that wasn't the case any longer.

But apart from the genin trapped in the bath, other resources were being drawn on to their limits, and that included sending some of the most unlikely of the walking wounded out to do battle.

Sasuke Uchiha dismissed a veil a fellow ninja offered him and joined the latest batch of battle-chewed shinobi on their way back out into the meatgrinder. There wasn't a healthy ninja in sight, but Sasuke had an advantage over most of them in that he at least hadn't already exhausted his chakra reserves. In fact they were untouched. And he wasn't the only one heavily bandaged, or hopped up on painkillers to a perilous degree.

That made him suited to the heavy work.

Unfortunately, he was already far gone into a vengeance kick against the one who'd cut off his balls.

Sasuke joined the half dead team assembling to go back out into battle, and with a crazy glint in his eyes muttered, "First I will kill that one, then I will kill HIM, and use his balls to rebuild my clan!"

"Not likely, you poo-wielding emo-lord!" Ino called out, coming in wounded and exhausted, hauling in a badly injured Hinata along with her. "Just try and be a little less pathetic than usual out there, alright? I mean kill someone before you die out there, okay?"

Ignoring the former fangirl as she lay down in a blank spot and began fixing her and Hinata's wounds herself rather than joining the queue for the medics (although in the back of his mind he was trying to understand what her insult meant) Sasuke activated his Sharingan and charged out into the battle, only to get immediately blinded by dust that veil he'd turned down would've kept out of his eyes.

"GAAH!!"

The Uchiha disappeared out from the midst of his assault team as a giant tongue came down and snatched him up.

Back inside the building, Neji came forward and stood beside Hinata where she lay having Ino tend her wounds for her. The Branch House Hyuga had seen the remnants of their enemy gathering outside. The last charge would come soon.

Seeing their scout and early warning system move to a position ready to face enemy activity, the other exhausted and dying ninja of Konoha prepared for a final defense.

Then a swarm of puppets attacked the Sand shinobi from behind.

Naruto had had to face sand pits and avalanches, dodge giant serpents and the ongoing summon battle, overcome Sand Clones and finally crest a net of wire traps to get his puppets to a position where they could relieve the embattled manor house, but he had done so.

Those puppets were overlaid by illusions to look like their controllers, who all were Shadow Clones of Naruto. The puppets were also mixed with ordinary clones, and sprang upon the Sand ninja as soon as they could throw weapons. Dodging an illusionary weapon is pointless, but still distracts, so the hail of incoming kunai gave the Sand shinobi no room to maneuver, nor did their storm grant them any cover against those strikes, guided as they were by Naruto clones, using their bloodline's special vision.

A fully rested and able shinobi force out of Suna could have engaged that puppet army with a fair degree of success. But they were every bit as beaten down as the Konoha forces.

It broke their assault and they ran.

Inside the ruined manor house, Neji relaxed, and announced the news. Those within raised a hearty cheer before turning to tend to their wounds.

..I-I..

Naruto's feet had healed up enough for him and Anko to rejoin the battle, so finally the giant summons fight was turning in their favor as they both used Temporary Paralysis (to which snakes are especially vulnerable) to drop all summons Orochimaru attempted, while Anko added hers to the Konoha side.

Of course, this led to a counterattack by Kabuto. Only, after fighting him often enough to become sick of the guy's usual tricks, Naruto had added seals to the clans outfits that blocked the chakra scalpel technique from functioning through the fabric of their clothes, unless you knew the counter-seal (which all of the clan members did, and Kabuto didn't).

Of course, there was also the fact that, having fought the traitor medic so many times now, Kabuto no longer had any surprises for them in his arsenal. He'd get close wanting to use his intricate little dodging tactics, and they'd hit him with a wide-area smackdown jutsu, then finish him off while he was recovering from that technique.

Normally the traitor was very, very good at avoiding hits, but his combination of martial arts plus advanced medical jutsu had some of the same shutdown methods as standard martial arts: pin him down, stop him moving, blow him apart from a distance.

You couldn't dodge very well when you couldn't move your feet.

Stick Capture Field was an excellent one for nailing the traitor medic in place so he couldn't move around very much. After that, it was almost a matter of preference what jutsu was used to finish him off. Some used Thunderlance to watch him jiggle as the electrical charge fried his brain, others preferred to roast him in a more literal sense, using fire. When they had time and chakra to spare, many eager young medical students enjoyed cutting him apart slowly by employing wind. Carving apart a living target was certainly one way to study anatomy. So they could not only kill an enemy, but increase their medical knowledge at the same time!

Although, they probably would never have resorted to such torturous tactics had they not learned that Kabuto had done the same to helpless Konoha citizens, both civilian and ninja alike.

And, well, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and all. He'd started this himself doing it to innocent victims, so it was only right he got to experience it as the victim.

So Kabuto was hardly any threat. They knew how to neutralize him.

The trouble came from Orochimaru.

The actual Snake Sannin had vanished from the battle a couple of minutes ago, which was allowing the Konoha faction to work fearsome slaughter on his allies and unattended summons.

Naruto noted Sasuke coming up, but dismissed the emo as inconsequential. That lasted up until the Uchiha came up alongside, as if to help, and suddenly lashed out with his giant tongue, swallowing Naruto whole.

Orochimaru Uchiha chuckled, dashing away towards the desert, hoping to make a getaway under cover of the ongoing storm and lose all pursuit in the sands. "I will study you to find out where you get your enormous power, my blond little friend. Then I will come back to destroy the rest of Konoha's rising legends, to make certain they do not rise at all."

About his only regret was that the Uchiha whose body he now possessed had been nutted sometime during the fight. That would complicate the process of making replacement Uchiha bodies, and...

Suddenly the Uchiha's stomach bulged. Then he exploded, and Naruto stood in dozens and hundreds among the gore, in one fist holding Kusanagi, the Grass Cutting Sword, claimed from Orochimaru's own belly. In the other he clutched the Dog Summoning scroll, recovered from Kakashi's body.

Almost too calmly, Naruto turned and started walking back to the destroyed camp. The surviving ninja would insist on sending word of this deceitful attack back to Konoha. The Hokage would call off the Chunin Exams, just like he did every time the attacks and open fighting came early, and that would be the end of this reset.

So, it being morning, even if a particularly dreadful one, he had all day to play with Orochimaru's sword and figure out how it worked. Actually, he'd hold onto it while making a few dozen more clones, then have some clones hand off their cloned swords to his wives, so they could play with them as well.

He did so, and Yugao practically jumped his bones, to the accompaniment of Kin's wail of agony.

Naruto, and all of his Angels, would also sign the dog summoning contract to play around with those summons and see what could be learned about how to handle them.

Hana, at least, was going to have something to redeem her day. Pity about Kiba though. Ah, well. They'd see him in the morning.

And they no longer had to wait for Tsunade and Shizune to walk two days to rejoin them. He'd finally adapted the seals for that summoning trick used during the Forest of Death for summoning a chunin, and gotten it to where if his beloveds wee to scribe a seal on themselves where they were at, he could scribe a matching scroll where he was, and poof! Summon them across that distance like a super long range teleport.

Working the bugs out of that had made Tsunade very happy.

..I-I..

The morning of the reset dawned.

"Lee!" the jonin of Team Gai gave his favorite student a mighty hug in the early dawn light, as they met for training.

"Gai-Sensei!!" the youthful green beast of Konoha greeted his teacher in much the same manner.

"Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" Tenten, their normally reserved teammate added herself to the hug.

"Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" an orange-wearing Naruto joined the hug as well, much to the aforementioned duo's shock.

"Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" Hinata pounced on them as well.

"Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" Ino appeared from the other direction.

"Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" "Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" "Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" "Lee! Gai-Sensei!!" more and more girls appeared to hug the startled duo of spandex clad ninja, until finally the legendary Tsunade was added to the mix.

For the first time ever Gai's brain shut down in shock, and he fainted.

..I-I..  
Author's Notes:

I am very uncomfortable with fight chapters anymore. Three for three, each time the general reaction has been to tell me how everything I am doing is wrong.

I almost didn't continue to post this.

Oh, and the Never-To-Be-Sufficiently-Damned administrators of this site have also been working overtime to strip out all of my formatting and line breaks, of course. Their own bloody tyrannical system won't accept input from any machine I have access to, so I can't use the tools they insist I use to put in emphasis or spacers. So I come up with alternates, and they strip those out. That's real encouraging too.

..I-I..  
Tech Rant:

First, I will restate that it is our privilege as fanfic authors to portray any universe however we want to. My setup is internally consistent, something that CANNOT be said for the source material!

But I would like to say a word on how I do not believe a post-apocalyptic scenario for Naruto could work. It is just not logical.

Our world is focused on transportation. That alone is going to represent a huge proportion of whatever relics survive. Cars and paved roads are both staggeringly more numerous and more durable than handheld radio sets (and food supplies like ramen cups would be among the first items to disappear as survivors consumed them). Yet there is no sign of anything like what we've got in the Naruto world, where people walk everywhere.

Not even a civilian on a bicycle to liven things up.

If Naruto was a post-apocalyptic world, bicycles would have been among the most useful, likely to survive, easy to figure out how to use and replicate items of tech imaginable - and cars would've been everywhere. Don't tell me that ninja who could animate puppets with chakra strings can't get wheels to turn. So, regardless of what's wrong with the engine, they'd have cars too.

So, from my point of view, they summon tech, and certain gaps represent things they just never thought to ask for, like cars and high tech weapons.

Because tech is all connected. You can't have certain things without others. Heck I am no chemist, but even I know it's possible to create napalm out of stuff already shown on the series, and you can't tell me that if they had the know-how, they wouldn't do it. If there are people sick enough to convert human bodies into puppets or play with demons, there is no 'universal moral standard' to say they wouldn't just burn someone to death.

No, in our world we had area-effect chemical weapons like mustard gas (or worse!) before we had radios small enough for a man to carry without a backpack. And the necessary chemical knowledge for those weapons AND modern explosives is less advanced than used in the plastic casings for the highly advanced, miniaturized modern radios they already show ninja using!

And ALL tech can be extrapolated upon! Everything that can be built uses principles that can be adapted into weapons, bar none. No exceptions. So if they understood how to create the technology they use, they would already have weapons able to defeat any ninja, destroy any village.

Mustard gas bombs placed in storage seals scribed in between layers on the sole of a ninja's sandal, primed to detonate the moment they are released, and the agents who carry them being throw-away genin, like fail the academy tests every year, and thus can easily blend into populations that have to re-absorb such failures, told to enter an enemy village disguised as civilians and carrying no outside equipment, then once they are in preselected positions, form a handseal and mold chakra in a certain way they are told signals they are ready, but actually releases the bombs? You can't tell me monsters like Hidden Mist wouldn't eagerly pull stunts like that off in a heartbeat!

No, if they truly understood how to create their tech, you'd really HAVE to hide your villages, because any your enemies could find, they would destroy.

And none of that's even TOUCHING the higher-end stuff! One of the best air-to-air missiles ever invented used less tech than a simple RANGEFINDER they already use in the show! Rockets were being used in the orient before they even had decent steel! And if they had the capacity and tech necessary for GPS and cell phones, they could have ICBMs, and no ninja village would survive.

In any kind of collapse scenario, guns and vehicles would be the priority. High end miniaturized electronics would be the LAST thing any reemergent society would be ABLE to reproduce!

And guns replaced the bow on the battlefield NOT because they were more effective - early ones SUCKED! Big time! Guns got to be everywhere because they were cheap, and could be used with almost no training. It was only after that they advanced and became more effective. Don't bother telling me those same principles wouldn't apply here!

"Let's see, I can put thirty people through six years of schooling, and MAYBE nine of them would become genin, whose fighting potential is nothing special. Then, after years more work and effort, MAYBE a few of them could become chunin, who might actually do something! Or, I could just give it all a miss and hand them all rifles, saving myself years of effort and countless amounts of tuition, and between the thirty of them firing they'd kill any nine genin you'd care to name."

It might not be strictly accurate. I'm sure many of you are already thinking of strategies by which fully informed ninja, completely familiar with the threat and as aware as you are of the dangers and the capabilities of guns, could take on thirty riflemen. But you cannot guarantee out of ALL the lords, merchants and gang bosses, none of them would consider trying guns vs ninja.

Gato certainly would.

And, not being aware of some new weapon is almost a guarantee of being slaughtered by it the first time you engage it. Then you have the Amazing Ninja Killing Stick! And all of the lords everywhere would be investigating this for use in their armies. Popularity has carried stranger things to the front of people's minds, and into battles.

There are ordinary soldiers shown in the series. And, if people use those when, as it stands, virtually any ninja can just waltz up to them in broad daylight and slaughter them all, how much more would they use soldiers if they could be handed Ninja Killing Sticks?

Even if all they could do was force the ninja to sneak up on them, that's still far more use than those soldiers are already. So, if they use them now, how much more would they use them then? Even a chance they'd kill a ninja is better than no chance at all, right?

And, like anyone would do, a person who has a small chance works to make that chance grow larger. So you'd find people waiting in ambush as snipers. And can you think of a better anti-Sharingan measure? Yes, we shot him in the back from two hundred yards when he was walking between towns. Guy didn't even know he was in a fight before he died.

So, unless the Sharingan can alert people when it ISN'T ON and ISN'T LOOKING you'd kill any Uchiha you'd care to name. And no one can keep it up 24/7, or even all of the time they're outdoors - and what is a thin rice paper screen going to do to stop a sniper bullet, anyway?

Old West gunslingers had a fast draw that put most samurai to shame, many could even shoot a coin in flight. And between snipers and gunslingers... even jonin could be killed by such measures.

Let's see, speed was the way to defeat the Sharingan, right? So, "Copy this" guy pulls trigger, fires bullets which themselves are moving too fast to see, much less dodge. He could move his entire body faster than I could swivel my wrist? Yeah right. Dead Uchiha.

Neo could dodge bullets. Sasuke can't. Not by the rules already set down (that Bakamoto pays no attention to his own rules in worshiping the emo I discard as useless).

Throw on a nightvision scope and hit him in the dead of night when he can't see. Bullets have no chakra to track.

And, in any kind of post-apocolyptic scenario, more guns would survive than radios. Sad, but true. And the kind of people who know how to reload their brass are generally the survival types, who are more likely than anyone to survive any type of societal collapse. In point of fact, they are more likely than anyone to have the kind of power after a collapse that would make them the lords of any feudal arrangement that were to rise out of the ashes.

And how did they get there? GUNS! Do you think they would forget them? NO!

Many of those same survival types are also the same kinds of people who know how to convert older cars over to using alcohol instead of gas. Alcohol doesn't provide the same performance per gallon, but anyone could make it, rather than rely on a resource that depends on a vast infrastructure.

Vehicles enable someone to range farther and carry more than a man on foot, so those that have them are going to be able to forage more, thus have more stuff, and by default be better equipped and wealthier than those without. So, with guns to defend their stores, they'd be in a position of authority to bargain, "You want my stuff? Then work my fields."

So, back to the 'survivalists as feudal lords' scenario.

And even after their original tools rot (which, being durable materials, would occur only after all radios had perished) there are guns and cars simple enough to be made by a blacksmith pounding on metal with a hammer. You won't find any radios that are.

Sam Colt's original six-shooter was spawned in a blacksmith-pounding-metal era. But a society that can crank out instant ramen containers could be churning out Brownings, AKs and Uzis with ease.

The only reason ninja combat exists as it does is because guns don't exist, and the only reason that could happen is people not knowing about them, and they exist in SO MUCH literature, references, physical examples and so on, that the only way that could happen was this NOT being a post-apocolyptic world!

Ergo, they summon technology instead of inventing it themselves.

That Bakamoto disagrees I chalk up to yet another instance of his having put no thought whatsoever into his own series. 


	52. Chapter 52

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Two

by Lionheart

I I I

The first demand, reset morning (after pulling an obligatory prank on the non-repeating Lee and Gai, just to show they cared), was naturally for Temari to teach them all those environmental specific exercises so powerful when used in Suna's defense. Toward that end, they drafted Gaara to create huge drifts of sand for them to practice on. Then a Temari clone simultaneously covered each technique in detail for clone audiences, while additional Naruto clones played children's games with Gaara.

They used clones because this was primarily jutsu or chakra training, and so did not require the constant presence of the originals. Durability was not required, only a functioning mind, and their clones had that.

Also, having defeated Orochimaru even once, even at such cost, had put a spring into everyone's steps. He Could Be Beaten! Even if they didn't WANT to repeat many of the variable that led to that defeat, he could still be killed. That knowledge lent everyone a sense that the time loops could be resolved soon, and all suffered varying degrees of eagerness for the resolution thus offered.

However, it also led to something of a rush of preparations. Nobody wanted to lose these chances to practice up critical skills, especially in risky areas, before those skills had been fully acquired. So a great number of projects that had previously proceeded at a very lazy pace got picked up smartly to be rushed towards conclusion.

Medicine was an area of peculiar interest for all of them, as the opportunity to practice without concern for risk of the procedures tried was not going to come again, and, once lost, put a definite cap on what they could learn. More could be discovered under those conditions than perhaps any other. So it was either use this chance or lose it for all of those girls.

Medical knowledge was priceless, as valuable as the lives that could be saved using it, and the opportunities for discoveries, progress made into areas never ventured before, was practically limitless during the loops, as they had literally NO variables they didn't introduce themselves, which was absolutely unprecedented, and the most valuable research tool imaginable.

Tsunade's requirements to cure something that had never before been cured put a fire under everyone's pants, as delving into those never-before cured areas incurred loads of risks for the patient, and working those out properly where nobody permanently died was a priceless resource.

And, realistically speaking, if they couldn't earn her stamp of approval as medics using those loops to their advantage, they weren't ever going to. So all of Naruto's Angels began feverishly picking up the pace on their medical research projects, planning to have those done before the resets ended.

Meanwhile, Tsunade and Shizune began probing the frontiers of medicine yet further, not to qualify themselves, just to become still better at medicine so yet more suffering could be alleviated.

The second demand was Hana's, insisting that they'd relied too much on poor Naruto to be their entire support network, as clearly he'd been overworked in spite of having thousands of clones, as proven by their having not had some critical items of their support infrastructure present during that last fight of theirs, notably the body armor for themselves (the tigers got theirs done because Naruto was still fine-tuning those designs), and the Toad Summons.

So, they needed more summoners. Everyone could agree on that. What Hana demanded that surprised them, though, was taking that a step farther to say that all of Naruto's Angels should pick up some of the support skills he offered to them, in particular when it came to equipment design and supply.

As clever as he was, he couldn't think of everything. And if a few of his girls could help him do one thing or another, they'd get more of it done if he got suddenly distracted by, say, ANBU demanding they report to the Hokage to explain something like journey prep during a reequip morning.

Also, once they became good enough to do the equipment generation without aid, they could spare him more easily for the day required to get the Toad Boss to accept him as a summoner.

It was a course that should lead to fewer accidents where they went without things, and that desert fight would have been over much sooner with fewer casualties if Naruto's clones hadn't popped by the thousands over threats the armor he'd designed would've protected them from.

So, by Hana's command, Naruto's Angels set out to get fully trained in all of those skills they adored so in him, which was all of them. So they got all of the clones each woman could muster that weren't already practicing Sand techniques out there training under Naruto to learn his support skills.

Of course, that was far from the only major issue that had to be addressed. Since Naruto copied the remorseful Sakura's memories from the Sand battle using that transfer technique he'd developed before discovering the Kitsune bloodline would preserve their memories by itself, they had to decide whether or not to restore those memories to the girl.

By Clan tradition, they made all major decisions undergoing spa treatments (although Naruto massages were forbidden for the duration of the debate, as no one would be able to think properly if enjoying one, and it was a strong encouragement to be brief and to the point, as those SS-rank massages always came after the meetings were over).

Temari led off their discussion, soaking in the water of their private hot spring, her hair splayed out over the stones. "Surprisingly, I don't really mind Sakura anymore. I don't want to add her to the family, but as for adding her to the resets - why not? She got a much needed kick in the pants and events basically drove her into the ground and broke her in tiny little pieces. Now we can make her into something new - move her in a new direction."

Ayame, receiving a pedicure, was next to speak. "I might not like Sakura, but I think she has been properly disillusioned about Sasuke. And she's paid ten times the entry fee of any of us. I mean, she's basically been torn down to nothing, poor girl. While I agree I don't particularly want her to marry Naruto, we should let her reset to see if she could become someone worthwhile."

Kurenai, lounging around on the grass, also offered her opinion. "I'd say let Sakura join us all the way, temporarily at least. I think in the last reset she'd suffered enough to at least begin to repay for what she has done to Naruto. She deserves at least a chance to try to prove herself. After all, we gave Kin a chance and she was a sworn enemy none of us knew. Sakura is just a misguided, admittedly self-misguided, girl who isn't an enemy or someone we absolutely hate."

"Naruto doesn't stop loving easily," Hinata added fervently. "We couldn't be so cruel to him as to give him a wife he doesn't want, and being temporary would only hurt him doubly!"

She gave her own teacher a sharp glare, causing Kurenai to wince.

Ino gave a surprising snort of disgust. "I agree with the statement, 'Sakura paid her entry fee'. But Hinata's got a point. Do we have to add Sakura to our family? I don't have cause to think highly of her loyalty. Couldn't we bring her into the loops, then pawn her off onto Gaara? She might be able to save Sasuke from the career shift to blind soprano, though why she'd want to I don't know."

Tsunade groaned in pleasure while receiving a foot massage from one of her clones - a distant second best to one of Naruto's, but better than nothing, and it warmed her up for later. "I don't really like Sakura either, but I can see the point about the girl having paid her entry fee. Although, Ino has a point too about her lack of loyalty to friends, and Hinata's argument is sound. But now that Sakura's recognized her failings and been, as Ayame said, reduced to nothing, she has the chance to build upon a new foundation and become a better person than she's been. I think she deserves that much."

Shizune, surprising no one, agreed with her teacher. "Personally, I'd suggest giving her a chance, at least a small one. Let's just let her into the resets and see if she can become someone better than she's been. It gives us an opportunity to look at the potential for second chances in others, which is something Naruto hasn't had to do much of thus far. Yet to become the ultimate ninja/Kage, he should know when it can or cannot be done (I'd think). Let's do it the temporary way. That way we can throw her back if we don't see some kind of dramatic reversal."

Anko chuckled, limbs splayed where she lay nudely and lewdly upon the tiles. "We could always do it just to spite the broody bastard. Some of his fangirls have had second thoughts after seeing Ino drop him like a dead rat. If both of his prime supporters declare him unfit for female consumption... well, girls care about the opinions of other girls. It could destroy his popularity if we can name some cause for why they dropped him - and that should be easy."

Kin shrugged from a patio table where she'd been enjoying a parfait. "As for Sakura, if she can admit to her stupidity in not appreciating Naruto from the start, then I'm okay with letting her join us to any degree."

Hinata was frowning. "The situation of Sakura is not that easy. She did too much damage to Naruto in the past when he was vulnerable and needed her! And she has taken a lot of time for her to come around to him. We shouldn't trust her, especially not as a member of our family!"

"Sakura's not that bad. She was simply trapped when she was a foolish little girl. How many of us were always as mature or as wise as we are now?" Hana asked the group her own question. She sighed. "Yes, Sakura is an immature, arrogant little punk. And yes, Sakura should have actually seen Sasuke was a sulky little bastard with a superiority complex and a stick up his bottom a long time ago. But, so long as we keep her at a safe distance, that doesn't mean we should deny her a chance at improving herself as a person."

Anko disagreed. "Aside from her negative attitude towards Naruto, Sakura is a very fragile person who can't function without people supporting her and holding her hand. Her taijutsu and overall performance are pathetic, while her so called intelligence hasn't gotten her any ninja skills worth the name. I still say draw her in to destroy Sasuke, but I like Ino's idea of pawning her off to Gaara once we're done with her."

Tenten sighed. "I'm just tired of watching her get hurt."

Yugao, as den mother (looking to retire), had to withhold her own vote and watch as this debate played out. Luckily for her, she didn't care much either way about the girl, so she could declare the winner without any real bias.

Ino considered for a long moment, before adding, "Interestingly enough, I seem to share similar thoughts to Tenten. I was kind of getting tired of watching Sakura get hurt, as, while she is extremely annoying, she's nowhere near as bad as Sasuke, or the hypocritical, lazy, and near worthless teachers that are Jiraiya and Kakashi."

Kin suddenly blurted out, "Watching people humiliated is all well and good (especially when they are jerks, and egotistical jerks at that), but watching someone get their heart metaphorically ripped out and stomped on again and again, and not even being allowed to remember what they did wrong to prevent it from happening again (really, she's been getting it much worse than Sasuke since he is too arrogant to care if no one likes him)... it gets depressing after awhile."

Anko was silent for a moment, before adding, "Anyone who's ever felt emotional anguish in their lives (and it doesn't have to be emotional pain from betrayal, just emotional pain) would start to sympathize after some time. Okay, I'll admit, after awhile I started thinking it'd be nice if she was at least allowed to remember the heartache the resets caused her, if not the actual memories, so she could stop setting herself up like that."

Seeing the prevailing opinion going against her, Hinata spoke out to limit the damage for in case Sakura should act as she feared she would. "I say we give Sakura a test-run, temporary access to reset memories without being a clan member, like we did with Kin. That way justice gets satisfaction for past hurts, and if we still don't warm up to the idea of her being included, we can pawn her off on Gaara or Lee or someone else."

Gazing around at those faces of the assembled Angels, Yugao pronounced her judgment, "Well, that appears to be the consensus. We all admit the girl has problems, but ought to get a chance to see if she can change. So, that's what we'd all like to see: whether or not she can make some shift to being a decent person. None of us like her as she is now, so she doesn't get to marry Naruto. We'd just like to see if it was possible for her to become someone better. Right?"

The den mother received a chorus of nods.

Yugao sighed in relief. It wasn't often a clan council was needed, and this had been her first. She was glad it had been an easy one to resolve. "Okay, then she gets brought into the resets on a provisional basis, a retainer rather than a clan member, with her future behavior determining whether she can remain in the resets with us at all. All in favor?"

There came a chorus of "Ayes."

A Naruto clone got sent off to restore Sakura's memories of the last reset. But Kin brought up something that stopped the Angles from dispersing to the hoped-for massages, "As our next item of business, I'd like to inquire about the possibility of recruiting a spy in Orochimaru's organization, one higher placed than myself."

"Who do you have in mind?" Hana asked, eager to get her hubby's hands on her, and so a touch impatient to get the real business out of the way.

"Tayuya of the Sound Four, Orochimaru's personal bodyguard group, and the closest thing he has to command lieutenants. She has far greater access to his plans and secrets than a lowly field agent like myself, and could help us blow the covers on whatever spies he must still have here," Kin answered.

Anko was scratching her chin, deep in thought. "Also, one of those who use a barrier to entrap the Hokage long enough for Orochimaru to murder him. If we can convert that chick to our side, that barrier would get dropped exactly when and where we wanted it to. Or never form in the first place."

"Any objections?" Yugao called after a moment of silence where everyone considered things. Receiving none, she called, "Then it sounds like we ought to make the attempt. Kin, you and Anko do the planning for this mission. Let us know how and when to get Naruto to massage her."

"Right!" The two kunoichi formed extra clones, which sped off.

Hinata remained delicately shocked for a long moment, before suggesting, "Um, Anko-chan, do you think your clone should've run off without clothes?"

I I I

"Wha..? what's going on? Where is the desert? Where is Orochimaru? What happened to all of our wounded? Did the Sand ninja come back?" Sakura started staring around, eyes freaked out the instant Naruto's hands left her forehead.

"Good morning," Temari greeted her with something of a smug smile, hand perched confidently on one cocked hip. "We don't do this too often, so we don't have an organized welcoming committee or anything. But welcome to the Time Loops! The memories you have of last night are actually one month or so from now, and we don't plan to be repeating that pattern, so you won't see it happen exactly that way again. Today is the start of the Chunin Exam, the written test portion. I know you won't believe me, so let's go to the center together and see."

"Where is Naruto going?" the pink haired girl asked, seeing him run off without a word to her. She was still panting in terror, not having quite resolved what the other girl told her.

"To join the Hinata patrols. She's run off on her own somewhere, and he's concerned that she didn't tell us, so he's scouring the city for her," Temari answered, unconcerned.

Confused beyond rational capacity over the big issues, her brain reverted to the small ones, and Sakura pointed mutely at the Hyuga heiress, greeting her team members just a short distance in front of them.

Temari just shrugged. "A shadow clone. We all know the technique now, and he's panicking that the original ran off without telling us anything. It's got him real worried."

"Why did you all decide to join his harem?" the pinkette asked, feeling that they were as alone as they were going to get in the middle of a village, and desperately wanting that question answered.

The Sand maiden chuckled, putting her arms behind her head in a gesture oddly reminiscent of Naruto. "Can you really call it a harem? I mean, we girls are still outnumbered by boys, if you count all the shadow clones. I don't think the same terms apply when a girl can get all of the cuddling, snuggling and alone time with the guy she wants, any time she wants."

Deciding to grab the crux of the issue (for a girl) by the horns, Sakura went right to the heart of the relationship aspect. "Are you planning to stay with him?" she pressed, needing to know.

"Why would we want to leave?" Temari shot her companion for the morning a disbelieving glance. "Look, Sakura, he's EVERYTHING a girl could want in a man! And the few times he's learned he was short on something, he devoted extra clones to learning it and became an expert overnight!"

The blonde stopped to wag her finger like a school marm before Sakura's chest. "Naruto is the kindest, gentlest man I've ever met! And he's never ONCE said anything to hurt my feelings! I can vouch for the rest of the group to say they could say the same. Plus, he's the richest man you'll ever meet, bar none!"

"Naruto? Rich?" Sakura had her own turn at looking disbelieving.

"What is wealth?" Temari shot back. "It is goods and labor, right? Well, he's been caught up in these time loops so long he's become an expert on most any trade you could name. So, instead of buying goods, he makes them. And since he has THOUSANDS of Shadow Clones working for him he's effectively richer than my whole home village! Want jewels? He's got 'em, better than you'd find in the most upscale diamond market. Clothes? He BEGAN to catch us already the most accomplished tailor I'd ever HEARD of!! The few times he's shown his real skill out in public the Fire Daimyo ordered the Hokage to have him retired as a ninja so he could serve as their royal tailor! And he's only gotten better since! Food? Grown men have WEPT on eating his meals! He's strong, and he loves us to death. He's willing to do anything for us. What more could a girl ask for in a man?"

Temari stood back and shook herself. "Sorry. I get tired of the morons in this village treating him like some kind of monster, when he's the kindest, sweetest, wealthiest man you'll ever know, and the best ninja besides."

The newly resetting girl's face scrunched up in confusion. "How could the Fire Lord order the Hokage to retire Naruto? I thought we lived in a separate village?"

"One that reports directly to the Hokage," Temari rolled her eyes and sighed. "Look, Sakura, it's nice to feel independent, but we're not. Otherwise how could the Wind Lord order MY village to reduce our ninja force by two-thirds? We live in their country, we follow their rules. That's how the feudal system works. Sorry. But while we have more independence than most peasants, we ultimately still have to take the orders of our lords sometimes."

Sakura's face scrunched, not quite believing, but discarded that, still wanting to define the parameters of this relationship she'd just dived into. "Aren't any of you worried about how good a father the village prankster would be?"

Temari broke out laughing out loud, doubling over and clutching her gut. She raised three fingers by way of reply. "Three words: Shadow Clone Parenting. We'll never have to worry about a babysitter, no arguments over whose turn it is to take care of them. There will ALWAYS be enough of Naruto for him to rush forward to do the job. Want to go out an evening? He can do that, too. Worried that your children may grow up a stranger to their mother because their father spends so much time with them? Leave a shadow clone of your own behind. Children sick so they'll keep you up at nights? Let a clone take care of them while you get a perfect night's sleep, knowing you are on the job. And because they are your clones, you recall with perfect clarity all they did, too. And when you rest well at night while clones lose sleep, the clones you create in the morning are well rested, too, ready to go back to their duties. There is NOTHING to worry about! NONE of the ordinary strains on a marriage from parenting! You get to do everything you want, PLUS all of the duties you have to! Our children will receive better care than royalty, and us wives will still be pampered as much as he does now - which is frankly enough to make royalty envious!"

Temari had to wipe tears of laughter from her eyes. "I'm not kidding there. The last time a courtier caught sight of us on a typical evening, Naruto was practically arrested and dragged before the Fire Lord, who demanded that he leave us and start taking care of THEM! It was hilarious, in a strange way. But lucky for us Naruto doesn't find any of the Fire Lord's female relatives at all attractive, or we'd have to deal with their Court practically every reset. The Fire Lord's already tried to marry him off to one of his daughters twice now."

Sakura started to feel reassured, and said so, "Well, I guess I can handle being in the harem, then."

"No, you won't." Temari sobered instantly. Raising an admonishing finger, she instructed, "Marriage to Naruto is a privilege, and one you haven't earned. He is our most prized treasure, and the benefits of marriage to him are just too great to hand out to just anyone. She has to earn our trust, prove that she deserves the right, before we let him claim another bride. That's the way it worked with Kin, and that's the way it will work with Tayuya, and the way it might work for you... if you could ever convince the rest of his brides that you had fully forsaken all of your old Naruto-hating ways. None of us will ever tolerate him having a girl close to him who hurts him. That's final. And you have years and years of being a bitch to make up to him before any of us, but in particular Hinata, would even think about forgiving you. You are, for the moment, a family friend. That's all. Being more depends on how well you handle even that much."

Sakura's eyes widened in hurt that she could say such things, before she both sighed and nodded in understanding. They were justified. She'd been a complete and utter pill to Naruto. She didn't deserve his kindness.

The pair of them joined the streams of genin teams flowing into the test center. Somehow along the way Sakura'd stopped even fighting the ridiculous thought of them having gone back in time, too. And, to her own surprise, found herself going through the motions as if accepting this all as real.

Since it was real, she found herself totally convinced in short order.

I I I

Kin showed up to the written test of the chunin exam wearing Anko's former typical garments: mesh top, trenchcoat and miniskirt. But, of course, neither boy on her team had ever met Anko, so they couldn't know that was the source of the costume change.

Kin's face was aflame with a fire-engine red blush as she sat down beside them, and when her teammates got up to look at her curiously, she snapped before either had opened their mouths. "Don't! Just don't ask. That way I don't have to kill either of you."

Dosu pointed at her anyway. "But..."

"I lost a bet," Kin groused angrily, diverting her face away. "I bet on a horse that couldn't make the distance, and this is my forfeit. Now be quiet! I'm embarrassed enough as it is."

Dosu leaned back, grinning.

"Is that thing going to flap open, by any chance?" Zaku, the guy with the air tubes down his arms, asked, smiling and pointing at her trenchcoat.

"It better not. I glued the flaps to my breasts to make sure it wouldn't. Now if you want to DIE, go right on asking embarrassing questions!" Kin drew a kunai out of her holster, looking angry enough to really kill someone.

Zaku laughed, and both boys faced front in the examining room. "No, it would be a bother explaining why we didn't pass this test for lack of a team member." Dosu chuckled.

"Or two," Kin muttered darkly, leaning forward on crossed arms so the desk and her sleeves hid some of the easy view of her cleavage.

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Well, I'll go ahead and admit it. I didn't actually stop writing this story during that month. I'd prepared tons of disconnected scenes while struggling to complete that fight. And, well, it just so happens that I may be able to string those together into stories with some of my usual speed, provided I don't get any distractions.

So, with any good fortune, we should be back to pretty quick updates for a while. 


	53. Chapter 53

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Three

by Lionheart

I I I

The day of the reset had spurred a frenzy of activity.

They'd nearly lost the fight against the Suna ninja rather terribly. Luckily, they'd turned that around, and in the end Naruto had saved a copy of the remorseful Sakura's memories.

But, to everyone's surprise, Kiba's memories had made it through, too. The instant Hana hugged her brother on reset morning, all of Kiba's memories had come flooding back to him.

They'd discovered this only after the family conference, when the boy had acted confused and outraged about having to go back to take the first chunin test again.

That was pretty much of a dead giveaway.

So, one of Hana's clones was off explaining the situation to him, things her brother had to know as a provisional friend of the clan, just as Temari was saying the same things to Sakura (where she was also declining, on Naruto's behalf, the pinkette's offer of sex - much to her shock and amazement, even though it got explained she'd be taught ninja skills anyway).

Kiba's unexplained arrival had led to some excited discussions among Clan Kitsune, not the least of which was how, exactly, his sister had done it so that it could be duplicated, so friends and brothers, fathers and teachers could be brought in as well, multiplying the number going through the resets, and potentially the strength of Konoha.

Hana had faithfully relayed what she'd known about what had happened, which wasn't much. However, it was the Kyubi who was the real surprise. They'd sought her out in an agony of frustration, knowing this was possible but unable to reconstruct how, when the demoness just up and explained it!

"Oh? You mean you didn't know?" the fox had inquired innocently, having been in a more natural looking clone (for her) these past few resets, playing in the forest chasing rabbits and butterflies. "I hadn't realized you hadn't known all along. Sometimes you act so foxlike it's hard to grasp you didn't come into being with the regular instinctual understanding of this." She hopped up on a cushion, finished chasing rabbits for now, settled back on her haunches and explained, "Well, it's quite simple. Foxes are masters of illusions, and really this is a naturally occurring... well, like a mirage in time, and that's quite close enough to an illusion for us to have an influence over it."

The regular fox-sized kyubi, currently displaying only one tail so she didn't spook all of the guards around Konoha, shrugged in a completely anatomically impossible way for a canine. "Poor things occur when Time and Destiny don't mesh properly. Time insisted that Naruto had to die, having jumped through that violet field, but Destiny wasn't finished with him. So you get this glitch as they work it out together. Destiny always wins these things, but it would have taken a few centuries caught up in the swirl for that to occur on its own. Normally, nobody involved in these things is even aware they are caught up in them, and it would have resolved itself without anyone the wiser, most probably by Destiny stepping in to cause Naruto to select one of the paths he had not taken, and rush off in some other direction, rather than jumping into that field where Time would've insisted he die again."

The tiny kyubi yawned, displaying her canine teeth, before curling up in a furry ball on her cushion, emitting an air of smugness. "Of course, being who we are it was impossible to trap us for long. Our natural foxy cunning makes that absurd to try. We are natural tricksters, and gifted in illusions, so this state which is both a trap and an illusion couldn't have power over us long. Naruto kept his awareness and memories, instead of forgetting like everyone else, and figured out he was repeating almost at once, displaying his true foxy intellect. Then, of course, he took you as mates, and that enabled his gifts to shelter you from the endless forgetting. Then you had the wonderful good sense to see how superior it was being foxes, and once you'd accepted my adoption, if you will, into our magnificent species, you gained the power to shelter your own loved ones the same way he did originally, creating a harbor for their memories within the shelter of your own minds."

"We're also modest, I see," Kurenai deadpanned.

"Yes, aren't we?" the kyubi grinned, completely missing the joke, and preening while other girls stifled giggles at her expense. "Male to female and vice versa is the only way this sheltering works. Males hold males as rivals, and females hold other females as rivals. So it blocks the trust required."

"So that means we can bring in everyone we want!" Ino shouted gaily, happy to have her relationship to her parents restored at last. "Naruto can bring in all of our sisters and moms, while we can grab our fathers and brothers! Hey! We can even bring in the Whole Village!"

"Not quite," the kyubi cautioned, having stopped preening for a moment. "I am in Naruto, so he has much more of my powers than any of you, and thus more capacity. Also, you are only partial foxes, having much more human left in you than fox added, so you have far from infinite power to manipulate this illusion as you'd like. I sense each of you can only bring in one person; and, due to the natural cleverness of a foxy mind, that must be someone whom you trust intimately. If you don't love them, you could never draw them in, and if you don't trust them you will instinctively rebel against bringing their mind into contact with yours, as that's where you keep all of your secrets. And, being foxish, you naturally don't want them stolen."

Anko snorted, lounging back and crossing her hands behind her head. "No way am I doing it then."

Hinata's face had blushed rosy in defiance, and she insisted, "I am staying loyal to Naruto!"

Ino had also blushed rosy, before turning green. "Yeah. The idea of cheating on my husband just makes me sick to my stomach."

The kyubi chuckled at their response, and resumed human form. Since she was inhabiting one of Naruto's Shadow Clones, her human form was naturally the one he'd created for his Sexy technique, and in this form they called her Vicky to avoid alerting villagers that their demon was on the loose. "No chance of that. He's taken you as his mates. Most animals would've lost all interest after getting you with pups, but he shows no signs of ever deciding to leave you. Of course, being foxes, you had small chance of that. We are social animals, communicating and cooperating and living together in family groups. Mated foxes will risk their lives to distract pursuers from each other or their cubs. We make truly spectacular mates and parents."

As arrogant as that statement was, the assembled girls were all too busy feeling relief over that declaration to poke any fun at it.

"Of course, normally we match up in pairs," Vicky allowed with a roll of her head. "Multiple vixens is unusual. Normally, we don't go much into that. Dogs and wolves are the ones that form packs, not us. Too cumbersome. However, I don't claim to understand human mating customs. What I can tell you of our own is that until he releases you (which, as I've told you, most animals would have already done, but foxes are too clever by half to treat something as important as mating as casually as most creatures. Would you risk your life for a mate you never intend to see again after this season? Quite sensibly, Naruto shows no signs of ever doing anything so unfoxy as un-mating you) you'll have no interest or ability to mate with someone else. In fact, should you find that such feelings could exist towards a person, or they have them towards you, you'll be unable to bring them into your mind. And, if they had a shelter there already, they'd be ejected. One mate per vixen, that rule, at least, he has kept. Otherwise I'd be concerned he was turning into a dog."

"So, to bring someone into the resets we'd have to love them... in a non-mate kind of way. Like a brother." Hana mused, before grinning.

Vicky tossed hair off her shoulder in a haughty huff. "Frankly, I don't see what you humans have against mating with brothers. But, yes, if you love them and not as mates, that could qualify for that part. But you'd still have to trust them with having access to all the secrets you possess."

"About that part, that's the second time you've said it," Ino protested. "But I don't understand what you mean about stealing secrets."

Vicky made a finger gesture and suddenly they were all in the elegant manor house that served as Naruto's mind. Now they were in the total privacy of his mind, she released her own foxy accessories, tails, ears and whiskers appearing to match the rest of the clan, although she appeared far more comfortable with them on than even the most veteran of Naruto's wives.

Vicky walked up to a wall, where hung a portrait of Naruto. They were in the concert hall section of his mind, and the portrait was of him playing the flute masterfully. Beside the portrait hung several ribbons for performances well done, and a silver flute stood on a pedestal before this display.

"Naruto knows how to play the flute, right?" the kyubi-in-human-form thrust out a finger at the little display.

She got several nods from confused women, wondering what the point was.

Vicky then took down the portrait, flute and ribbons, shifted them all to her own gilded cage out in the gardens, hung them back up there and proudly proclaimed, "Now I do."

There came gaping astonishment at this smug declaration, but to prove it, the embodied fox lifted the flute and played...

... exactly as Naruto had done. They could recognize his style.

Ino was white-faced in shock. "Naruto won't be able to play until you put those back, will he?"

Vicky shook her head, smiling.

"Only an enemy would take those abilities he'd created away from him," Anko told the fox dryly.

Vicky gave a nasty start, and pained grimace, before snatching them all up again and quickly shifting them back to the concert hall portion of Naruto's mind, where she replaced everything just as it had been before, breathing a sigh of relief as she did so.

"I was only going to borrow them," the demoness snorted defiantly.

To everyone's surprise, Kin reappeared, having run off to get a canvas and stand from her room. These she set up before all of their puzzled gazes, and began to paint.

"What are you doing?" Tenten asked, concerned.

The former Sound ninja smiled to all of them. "Why, I am creating a copy of a great piece of art. Want to join me?"

"What are you trying to do?" Kurenai emphasized.

The dark haired girl gave off a delicious shrug. "I thought it would be obvious. If hanging this painting in my room would make me able to play flute like our beloved husband does, I want to see if creating a copy of that portrait out of my own materials would do the same. We are all in our minds right now, so it's all symbolic anyway. And I don't want to steal, only to have a copy for my own. Wouldn't we all like to be able to do what he does?"

The other Angels all ran off to their mental rooms to grab paints, scattering to go copy portraits of the skills they most desired.

There came an almost instant moment of surprise when Tenten started to copy his weaponsmithing abilities that way, only to see the paints practically fly off of her brush onto the canvas, almost painting the portrait for her - although, instead of showing Naruto at his forge, the painting was of Tenten.

"What's going on?" the weapons mistress recoiled from the spooky canvas.

"Oh, that's something one of your clones is practicing out in the real world." Vicky yawned conversationally. "Naturally, your efforts to copy that skill here and there add to each other. You are telepathically reinforcing the training you are doing in the outside world."

The ladies of Clan Kitsune stared at each other for a shocked instant, before reorganizing quickly to work on things their shadow clone doubles were trying to learn out in the real world. If one was going to try and learn something, might as well go for the best results, the fastest you could get them.

"I think I'm going to put a clone on learning painting from our hubby," Temari popped out of the mindscape, saying, "Back in a second!"

Once more the others looked at each other. "That was pure genius," Tsunade allowed, speaking thoughts for all of them.

Naruto was a great master artist, having been practicing for ages as a hobby he used to relax from the continual strains and frustrations of his condition. His skill had, naturally, improved over all of that time and practice, until he was a truly significant artist, alone in a village not known for its devotion to peaceful arts like music and painting.

Given that they were a militaristic culture not overly inclined to fine arts, Naruto was probably the most advanced musician, sculptor, painter and so on the village had ever spawned. His mindscape was covered in detailed art.

But that was the trick. A mindscape was made up of metaphors, and to do a better job of copying a painting, it helped to be a painter. Even though it was strictly a metaphor, having a metaphorical advantage ought to make things go more easily and quickly.

They all popped out to go task clones with learning painting from him.

Back in a jiffy, they all set up their easels in the art workroom section of Naruto's mind around the self-portrait of him standing in an artist's smock, with a palette of mixed colors in one hand and a brush in his other, a big smile on his face as the portrait of Naruto stared at an empty canvas of his own, about to paint. The portrait caught him in a relaxed and confident mood.

The amount of artwork hanging around the room was truly intense.

"I have a question," Kin stated, pausing as she was in the act of getting her tools together. "Vicky, you'd said we'd need to trust someone absolutely before we could let them into our minds, that our natural foxy natures would prevent us from allowing access to someone we didn't love or trust. So..." the former Sound maiden paused, drawing in a deep breath. "How was it that Naruto was able to copy my memories? I mean, he had to grant me a room in his mind before I was even married to him, just so I could join the resets. How was he was able to do that?"

Ino put down her paintbrush and nodded. "Yeah. That's been bugging me, too, ever since I first heard you explain it. If Naruto still loves and trusts Sakura by now, after all she's done, then he's hopeless. She's never done anything that would inspire either love or trust. That actually worries me more than a bit. He doesn't trust everyone, does he? That could be a disaster."

Vicky popped her eyes up over the top of an easel of her own she'd arranged beside the others, to look at her house-mates. "Oh? No, don't worry about that at all. I was giving instructions for you girls. The same rules don't apply to boys. For one thing, he has this seal holding me lodged in his mind, that opens up a crack nothing can quite fix. Luckily, there are few who know how to take advantage of that, and I can guard against most attempts to take advantage of him through it, seeing as how it's me that's 'caught in the door' so to speak. I am what's wedged his mental shields open a crack, so I'm first guardian. But for the other, boys are naive in a sweet yet charming way."

"What do you mean?" Shizune asked, pausing in unstoppering a tube of colors.

Vicky gave them all a shrug. "Boys are generally foolish enough to believe that any female they can dominate is trustworthy. To be fair, females are generally foolish enough to prove them right. So, to a very large extent, control can be substituted for trust by men, so Naruto can grab memories out of any females he has reason to believe are subject to him. And, a girl under one of his massages promising to love him forever qualifies."

"And the love aspect?" Ayame asked quietly, not knowing if she ought to feel horrified by that previous revelation.

The Kyubi-in-human-form shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Because of the crack in his mental shields, it doesn't have to be much, and Naruto is one of those rare people who's willing to love anyone a little bit. Why else would he have been so concerned about becoming Hokage and protecting a village that hated him?"

I I I

"I'm so very sorry. We wanted to keep it a secret until we could surprise everybody," Hinata's shadow clone mourned.

Naruto and Shizune looked down upon the pale body stretched out lifeless on the medical table, deep below the surface of Konoha, in one of Orochimaru's hidden laboratories, where they'd discovered them hiding out.

"Why did you use the original?" Shizune queried, noting that her husband was too choked up to do so for himself.

The three of Hinata's clones she'd left behind to perform the procedure on her original body all looked terrible, but no worse in their grief than Naruto. "Because it was an invasive medical process, the cellular alteration was too close to damage to perform on a clone. It had to be her. None of us would do. It worked, but only for a few seconds before she..."

Inside a planter a couple of feet away, a trio of cherry trees stood about three feet high apiece.

Crying and grieving, Naruto reached out with trembling hands to draw a sheet over the pale, dead face of his most beloved wife, the one who'd always believed in him, trusted him, and... the first to love him.

Shizune formed extra clones to summon all of the wives, Naruto would need them now. And she also sent off one extra to report to Anko to flunk Naruto out of the tests immediately - it didn't matter her excuse, their husband would be too far gone with grief to do anything until they'd reset and he had Hinata back.

That couldn't happen soon enough, actually.

Shizune took one of the clones aside, and whispered, "Okay, you are going to tell me everything you did. You get credit for the discovery once we complete it, don't worry about that, but this process is too much for one of us to do alone. You're going to brief us all on what you did, how it went, and what went wrong, so we can help you get it right. Hurting Naruto like this is just not something any of us want to do - so you can't be permitted to go playing around with these experiments unsupervised again, alright? This is now a project for the whole clan, and we work on it together. Alright?"

Hana, when she arrived moments later, echoed those sentiments precisely. Yugao would repeat them again moments later, and Tsunade not long after that. Hinata would have her medical badge, just delayed until they could get her to live through the bloodline implantation process.

Anko failed Naruto's team out of the tests for 'being loud, obnoxious brats' (when they hadn't said a word) the moment she announced the second stage. The wives kept the knowledge of what had happened from his various clones so they could go on with the ordinary business of training, and copy over Sakura's memories again that evening as she went to sleep, so they didn't have to explain things to her all over again.

Hana, on Kyubi's advice, was able to do the same for Kiba.

I I I

Meanwhile, another Naruto had been making his own way around town after his own purposes.

That clone had been tasked with finding some of Konoha's summoning seal masters and learning what he could of their art.

Finding a place of business had been no problem. Those masters did a rather large amount of volume in their summoning, and old or retired shinobi of every stripe and description seemed to gravitate there as assistants, using their chakra to activate scrolls in giant warehouses, seeing what they got.

It was a great retirement scheme for people whose bodies would no longer permit them to go about doing active combat, but whose minds had been trained up in how to use and focus chakra.

Excess socks got baked down to charcoal and used to run furnaces to heat buildings. Everything else got sorted according to type and cataloged. What they knew how to recognize got used, and some of the rest got fiddled with to see if anyone could figure them out.

However, the clone's attention got riveted by a bit of garbage just thrown aside as useless, after a shinobi had ripped apart the packaging on a new set of wireless radios.

It was an instruction booklet.

More importantly, it was an instruction booklet written for an international audience, with the same instructions printed in different languages side by side.

The clone eagerly snatched up this Rosetta Stone and made off with it, after having carefully checked around, and grabbed other, similar bits of garbage. A long, long time ago, he'd tried translating a book on chakra control theory, as it had been one of only two available that he could find in the teacher resource library for the ANBU classes.

Despite countless hours of trying, he'd never been successful in translating the unknown language that book had been written in. He could recognize the characters as katakana, but the words and meanings?

No, he'd been hopelessly lost, only now he was found, because he had there a small handful of books printed in both his native Japanese, and this other language, the ever-mysterious 'Engrish.'

It was all he could do to avoid cackling as he devoured this clue.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Would have been out yesterday, but I had trouble wrapping my mind around the Hinata scene. And, to be fair, I was gone most of the day and had little time at my computer. 


	54. Chapter 54

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Four

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto pivoted lightly on the grass of the Kitsune compound, practicing the Hyuga Heavenly Spin technique.

He'd mastered the art of expelling chakra from every point on his body a very long time ago, just as another exercise for perfecting his lousy chakra control. Having seen Neji do this, and having heard the theory behind it, it had been a simple step to realize that it could help, as any chakra manipulation exercises at all improved his ability to command his massive reservoirs.

Command of those massive reserves had been a worthy goal for a long while, but now that he had a genuine copy of the Hyuga bloodline abilities, he had a use for that technique itself, the way it was intended to be used. He also had chakra reserves to be spending it profligately, using the 'perfect defense' more times, more often, and longer than any Hyuga who'd ever lived. Where they had to time things perfectly, so as to use the energy-wasting technique for only the briefest amounts of time, Naruto had no such limitations.

That made it easy to learn how to use, comparatively.

He also had opportunity to fully master the Gentle Fist, since the Kyubi had added those eyes to their bloodline. And, he had to admit that as a soft style with less emphasis on strength to do its damage, he would be more deadly at this style than any other he knew, so long as they stayed trapped in resets.

Having copied Neji's use of it was also a substantial advantage. He'd never be as fast as the Hyuga prodigy so long as his physical development was stalled, but that was no excuse not to fully master everything he could about this now, when, in spite of not matching Neji, it would be his best fighting style.

Of course, there was another reason for his Hyuga-centric training today.

Hinata had unintentionally killed herself performing medical experiments to implant the bloodline allowing Wood techniques.

While Naruto loved all of his wives, Hinata had a special place among them, as having believed in him and supported him so much longer than any of the rest - even before she'd had any clue about the resets going on.

The favors she'd done him, loving and believing in him, and in being his friend when no one else would, created a bond that nothing else came close to. He couldn't stand to lose her.

He could laugh about Sasuke getting nutted, or shrug about Sakura bleeding to death, yawn over most demises and cheer over the deaths of Konoha ninja so long as they were funny, but anything threatening to Hinata hit deep right in that protective area that triggered his most primal responses.

Nothing could be permitted to hurt her. Nothing at all.

But he couldn't deny her anything she wanted, either. And, having come so close to perfecting the medical implantation of that bloodline, she'd wanted to finish her work.

He had to agree on one aspect. Those Wood techniques made for a powerful addition to the clan's arsenal. They were rare enough few counters existed for them, powerful in their own right, versatile, and a great way to play with the minds of Sharingan donkeys, since they couldn't copy them. It also had more non-combat utility than any other ninja technique, except perhaps for the Shadow Clone.

So, while on the practical front, he had to agree to the completion of those experiments that could lead to Hinata gaining those abilities...

... he didn't want her hurt.

Of course, with Tsunade and Shizune there helping, actually the whole rest of the clan (including himself, Naruto wasn't about to be left out of this) there was a substantially reduced risk of errors. Their accumulated medical skills had already plugged several of the holes Hinata herself had overlooked. So it seemed a very reasonable risk.

Everything built upon the bloodline sharing medical techniques they, as a clan, were already well familiar with. That part was completely understood, in detail, by them - better, even, than Orochimaru, who'd started the work on this process.

It's just, the part they understood was only a piece of this. Bloodline sharing techniques wouldn't work to pass on abilities taken from anything but fresh tissue, and no living samples of a Wood technique user existed. The First Hokage was dead, and Tsunade did not possess an active bloodline from him. So the only tissue samples to work from were stuff that the regular, known bloodline transferal practices were useless on.

Orochimaru had struck out into new territory with his experiments, and he had never cared for the welfare of his test subjects. Those notes he'd left behind, while startlingly complete and accurate, had also stopped short of real success. The Snake Sannin had begun testing far before any competent medic would've counted the procedure safe to try.

Orochimaru was brilliant, clearly a genius, a mad one, but still a genius. He had developed some truly revolutionary ideas for the concept of stealing bloodlines out of dead tissue.

However, he'd never completed the work.

It was like trying to walk over three-quarters of a completed bridge. You still fell in the gorge before you could get across. It didn't get you all of the way to your destination.

The Snake Sannin considered an experiment a success when he could get one person in ten to survive the upgrade. At that point he was willing to stop calling it an experiment and make it a standard practice without any further refinement. But even by that measurement, his posthumous bloodline theft process had failed dramatically.

Tsunade was far and away a better medic than Orochimaru had ever been, and Shizune was not far behind. Between them, and the rest of the clan who'd been studying medicine under them, they had managed to fill in many of the holes in Orochimaru's theories and fix up the base of his design.

According to Tsunade, the hard part was what was left.

Even granted the specific body of knowledge Orochimaru had left behind in his research notes, Tsunade cooperating to provide living, if dormant, samples of the bloodline, and all of the work they had done to refine and improve the process...

... chance of survival was fairly dim indeed.

Even using Hinata, on whom the process had been done once before, and thus the person on whom they had the most copious research notes and material, the survival chance was only something like one in ten.

For Orochimaru that would be fine. He'd stick something like that into mass production. But for Naruto, where Hinata was concerned, it was so far into unacceptable that he'd barely restrained himself from forbidding them to proceed.

And he'd only just managed that because of Hinata's personal plea to him that he not. They'd obey him if he gave such an order, but no one would be happy to have come so close and not succeed in so potentially vital an area.

Darn it! Not even NARUTO would be happy to have come so close and not go the rest of the distance. But this was HINATA!

She'd die again, he knew it.

And, even though that was temporary, and despite the fact that they'd learn more about what NOT to do while doing it, and thus have a far better chance to make this work on everybody else, not to mention they only had to get the process to work once, then they'd ever after be able to repeat those steps exactly to grant the gifts to Hinata again...

Dang it! It HURT to see her die! No matter if it was temporary.

They boy threw himself into his practice of Hyuga techniques with redoubled fury, determined to distract himself, even if he was only a clone of Naruto.

The original had insisted that he lie on a medical table beside Hinata, with the work proceeding in parallel on him at the same time as her. Because, dang it! If she was going to die, he, sure as anything, didn't want to live through it!

All of Naruto's clones were having similar problems distracting themselves while the research process into gaining the Wood bloodline continued.

I I I

Naruto stepped out onto the grass under the forests of Konoha, turning this way and that, lifting one leg, and assuming various martial arts stances for Ebisu. It had been an age or so since he'd last seen the special jonin in his capacity of teacher, and the boy had long since more than fully mastered the last lesson he'd received from the closet pervert. So, he'd felt it time to see if the guy had any last tricks to impart.

So he'd faked a copy of the Hokage's encrypted note to the guy, this time complete with remarkably well forged security seals, so he could be getting this training while still undergoing the chunin exam.

Ebisu carefully adjusted his glasses, critical of the boy's form. "Very well, tell me what techniques you already know."

Naruto sighed, beginning again the litany. "My basic three are fully mastered, seal-less and almost traceless. My Essential Eight and Traveling Ten likewise. I know Shadow Clone, and two distraction techniques of my own devising, but you already know about those," the boy finished with a knowing grin.

Ebisu coughed and adjusted his glasses, attempting to master a slight blush. "Yes, well..."

Naruto shrugged and went on. "I've got basic affinities in all five elements, and can cut, crinkle, moisten, burn and powder leaves I hold in my hands, with a couple of combat jutsu from each element, as well as the standard three chakra control exercises mastered to the point where they don't teach me anything anymore."

It wasn't worth counting those exercises from Suna, as they were still in the act of learning those from Temari, and Ebisu wouldn't ask about them anyway.

The special jonin's jaw had dropped, but he mastered himself and adopted a stony expression.

"Show me," he commanded.

So Naruto did.

Ebisu began sweating, glancing back down at the Hokage's note from time to time during this demonstration. The note was clear, the encrypted message said to teach Naruto something, preferably a low-ranking jutsu, or something more basic if he needed it.

The teacher's impulses had been to show the boy the least advanced thing he could get away with while still following the Hokage's instructions. It wasn't in his mind to be terribly helpful to the demon brat, only to stay in the good graces of the Hokage, so he could retain the job of instructing his grandson.

Sweat droplets ran down the teacher's face in lines as Naruto showed him proficiency after proficiency.

No wonder the kid had been entered into the chunin tests! He'd have been a shoe-in for that rank for sure! Guiltily, the teacher began wondering which of the blond's teammates must have gotten their team thrown out. He'd felt sure up until this demonstration that if Team 7 failed it would've had to have been due to Naruto, but the village pariah had obviously been concealing hidden depths. His skills were extraordinary!

Not that Ebisu had believed his eyes before he'd tried every illusion negation technique he knew on the lad. But this was Naruto alright.

The demon container was coming to the end of an impressive sum of jutsu, more than Ebisu himself knew, really, and the special jonin was running out of excuses. The Hokage wanted the kid taught something, but what? Everything that could be considered 'low rank' the demon brat knew already, better than Ebisu himself, in most cases!

Then the teacher thought of something, and a smile spread out across his face as the boy came to the end of his already impressive arsenal, showing off a Gusty Barricade technique that successfully blocked several weapons thrown by the boy's clones.

"Very good, Naruto. I'm impressed," the teacher winced behind his facade at being forced to praise someone he'd always secretly despised. "I guess it is time for me to reveal the true secret behind D-ranked missions. Tell me, how many have you done?"

The boy looked at him warily, then shrugged. "Over twenty."

Ebisu was nodding, before holding out his hand. "Come. Let's go to the office and get one of each of the major varieties. After this, I'll have nothing more to teach you. Request a different instructor from the Hokage, if he wants to show you something again."

Ebisu smirked within himself. 'I have nothing more to teach you' could speak of willingness instead of ability. But frankly, he wasn't willing to part with any of his mid or high ranked techniques to the demon brat, and, as that note from the Hokage had specifically said 'low' he wasn't required to, either.

Doubtfully, the boy followed the special jonin along, until they were standing before a fence, open paint buckets beside them, and a mission to paint it.

The teacher had his arms crossed proudly, and he shouted, "Not that way!" as Naruto reached for a paintbrush. Adjusting his eyeglasses in a conceited manner, the special jonin explained, "There are two ways to do most any D-ranked mission. One builds your body, the other your chakra and elemental affinities. Since you already have your basic affinities mastered," and there was no way the special jonin was going to breathe a word over how impressed he was at that, "this ought to be easy for you. Observe!"

Ebisu formed a handseal, a basic one for water, and a glob of paint jumped out of the bucket and onto the fence in front of them, before beginning to spread itself out evenly, without using a paintbrush.

The special jonin was expecting his student to be awestruck, but in his desire got disappointed. Still, his professionalism didn't allow him to show it, so he rather arrogantly continued, "Although it has many impurities, fresh paint is still at the core of it a liquid, and all liquids behave as water. Learning control of water without using tools is an important step in becoming a successful shinobi, and so we give D-ranked missions to our genin so they have a chance to practice while getting paid doing a useful job to help the village."

Naruto was nodding, gradually coming to accept this. Forming the same handseal, he got his own glob of paint to jump out of a bucket and, after some initial difficulty, begin coating the fence.

Not wanting to waste his own time, Ebisu ordered the boy to leave some clones there to finish that mission, and took him out on a garbage clean up assignment they'd accepted at the same time.

"Now it's really the same thing here," The teaching specialist stood beside a large garbage receptacle, pointing out over a litter-strewn park. "Use Wind to blow refuse out of the bushes and trees into a pile, instead of gathering them with your hands. When you are really good, you can blow them directly into the container, like so!"

He formed a handseal having to do with air, and an empty bag of chips dislodged itself from some tree branches, fluttering and struggling toward the garbage receptacle. Ebisu was sweating, his body trembling, and his face screwed up in concentration, but the trash soon came to land, not in but beside of, the metal-mesh barrel he'd been aiming for.

Pretending not to notice his instructor's struggle or lack of success, Naruto formed his own handseal and began using directed breezes to collect refuse. It did not take him long, due to his extensive practice using other exercises, before he had the first few items land in the barrel instead of beside it.

Once more, Ebisu ordered him to leave some clones there to finish the mission, and took him off to empty a septic tank, explaining that the sludge within was a form of mud, and earth techniques were best practiced using mud, as it was considerably more mobile and responsive than dry dirt was.

There was also substantial motivation to get your control right, so as not to get any on yourself.

This time Ebisu stood back a far distance beyond easy splash range and asked Naruto to form an earth handseal he showed him, then begin to use chakra to clean the septic tank, manipulating the contents to do as he willed and empty the system that way.

Naruto obediently formed a few clones and began.

"We have low ranking missions associated with most forms of training," the teaching specialist explained as he immediately led the boy away, not waiting to get pranked with stuff out of the sewer line.

It turned out the practice mission for fire was something Naruto had never done officially, helping out at a local bakery. It turned out hiring a genin team for a day was a great deal less expensive than paying for a day's worth of good charcoal to run the ovens, and heating them with chakra so they were just the right temperature, neither too not nor too cold, and maintaining it there was hard work, but not so hard a genin team couldn't manage it so long as they had a budding fire affinity or two among the members.

Surprisingly, although he had an advantage on this with all of his work using chakra on forges doing metalworking, it turned out to be a different kind of exercise than he'd worked out for himself, so Naruto could still benefit from the experience.

After they'd left behind clones doing that, Ebisu taught him, "It is thanks to Lightning users that our towns have functional electrical systems. It took their sensitivity to their specialty to sense the flow of energy and connect things together to get us to where we could assemble anything usable."

So the next mission was doing electrical work on an old lady's house, trying to find the faults preventing parts of her house from having power, so they could fix them.

It turned out the place was far, far overdue for being rewired completely. But tracing everything, telling if it was live or capable of being live, and seeing where those faults were taught mid-level chakra control, especially in the lightning element, better than anything Naruto had done before.

Previously, he'd been forced to go from low level elemental affinity training, all of the way up to extremely high level, skipping out on all of the steps in between. So, while this wasn't entirely new, it still managed to teach the boy things on a level of detail he'd previously been unaware of.

It was like that for all of those D-ranked chakra exercises.

Leaving a few clones to play handyman and fix everything, Naruto allowed his teacher for the day to lead him away, presumably for another assignment.

"Baby sitting has all of the same elements as most bodyguard missions," Ebisu taught, leading him out to a park. "As does walking dogs and helping out the elderly. Recovering lost pets is excellent practice for later search and retrieval assignments, so if you look at them in those lights, those missions teach valuable, practical lessons on future shinobi life. Now, given that, what do you think could be learned by grocery shopping?"

"Intelligence gathering," Naruto shrugged, having come to that conclusion long ago shopping with Ino, even before she'd begun resetting with him. "You are given a set amount of money and time, any savings you make without a reduction in quality is money you get to keep. So finding the best buys is crucial. But you can't take too long looking or you fail the assignment."

"Yes," Ebisu agreed, slightly deflated, and impressed in spite of himself that the student knew the answer. "So, what would you say about gardening?"

"Survival practice," the child shrugged. "Learning how to recognize edible plants, telling them apart from weeds, could keep you alive in the wild if you ever have to forage for your own food. And there is no substitute to handling the actual plants for learning how to recognize them."

His teacher nodded. "Excellent, Naruto." He paused to stare up at the sky for a moment. "Package delivery is a typical ninja assignment even for jonin, it's just the stakes are higher out in the world. All these are the real ninja training assignments, preparing you for your future. Properly done, they teach more than just teamwork, but how to function on missions you should be taking every day as mature ninja. One of the most prized D-rank missions is helping out at a slaughterhouse, butchering animals. You do not get better acquainted with blood and carving flesh in any other way, not even in combat, than in killing and carving apart meat animals for sale. Those who have done it are far less liable to freeze in any combat scenario."

Ebisu adjusted his glasses, then folded his arms, staring off to the distance. "What most teachers ought to do, but forget to, is have their team only do each of the 'practice mission' assignments like baby sitting, dog walking, or package delivery, only once or twice to get the basics down before they split one genin off to be an 'opposition force' for testing the rest of their team. The 'bad' genin tries to prevent the two 'good' genin from completing their mission assignments, with their jonin on hand to stop anything from getting out of hand, and reward good thinking. They should also trade, every mission, which one of them is the opposing force, so each genin gets practice working both sides: offense and defense."

The teacher shrugged. "They use thrown fruit or water balloons instead of kunai, but a splat of jam is enough of a marker to say 'if this assignment had been real, your client would have been dead'. Of course, getting hit by a ripe fruit is enough to take an attacking ninja out of the action as well. So he has to be careful to either be stealthy, or take down the guards first."

The special jonin actually smiled down on Naruto. "Because, you see, as ninja we can be expected to try to attack targets who have bodyguards, prevent enemy extraction teams from capturing our agents, stop enemies gathering intelligence to use against us, or intercept valuable packages they are trying to deliver, as often as doing those things ourselves. So we have to practice both sides of each style of ninja assignment. A truly thorough instructor will have his team continue on in these mission training exercises until he has two 'bad' genin and only one 'good' one for each test, to teach them how to think out situations where they are on the defensive and outnumbered. It is a remarkably valuable teaching tool."

The blond boy's eyes widened, able to see for the first time what he meant. The real secret of those D-ranked missions was that the assignment was not the teaching tool, it was the opposition during it! It was the paintball of ninja, and taught everything they needed to know, without the dangers of actually doing it, instructive in a way that nothing else they'd done could match, so they'd be prepared for when it actually happened.

"So, why don't any of our jonin do it?" the boy quietly remarked, thinking he already knew about Kakashi. This sounded too much like a prank war, where a bucket of water falling on your head could simulate a deadly trap, and that guy wouldn't have wanted his precious Uchiha to look or feel bad losing to the village troublemaker, who'd done such things to jonin and ANBU. Whereas teaming the two boys up against Sakura would just have been sad, and not taught them anything, except, perhaps, overconfidence.

"Prestige, mostly." The instructor shrugged. "Genin graduate from D-ranked training assignments only when their teacher feels they are ready. Saying your team is ready faster than most is a status symbol, a hint they might be geniuses. Only since virtually everyone does it anymore, it's lost the glamor and respect it once had. Now it is expected. Actually, since the 'graduate my team fast' race has been a going tradition for so long in Konoha, most jonin instructors don't know how to take advantage of the D-ranked training tools anymore, since their own instructors passed them early, and they did not get to learn those lessons themselves, so do not pass them on to others."

When Naruto looked up, Ebisu had gone, having completed his message.

I I I

Kurenai was once an academy instructor. Having different areas of specialty and emphasis than Iruka, she still had loads to teach Naruto on basic ninja subjects. And, of course, the girls could also use a refresher.

They were just about to start when a pink haired head poked in.

"Alright, Sakura. You may join us." Kurenai allowed. "We are going over all your old academy lessons together to reinforce our fundamental skills and make sure to catch any material you may have missed learning. If you feel that's unnecessary, you may leave at any time, but kindly don't interrupt, as there are people here who really need this material."

"But what is Naruto doing here?" Sakura pointed. "These are kunoichi lessons, right?"

Kurenai treated herself to a small grin. "Naruto is a shapeshifter, and can make for a more convincing woman than you, dear. So these are important for him, probably more so than you, to whom a part comes naturally."

She waited a moment, as if expecting another interruption, and when that didn't happen, the jonin went on to begin the lesson. "As female ninja, we must not only be skilled in ninjutsu, but also possess a large amount of civilian knowledge and culture. If you cannot sneak into enemy territory and pass for a normal woman, then being a spy will be impossible. Today's lesson will be on flower arrangement. Now people, go off and pick some flowers."

I I I

Author's Notes:

No one else I've read of has described why they pay ninja to do chores, so I came up with my own theory for how this could be useful. 


	55. Chapter 55

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Five

by Lionheart

I I I

Sorry for the delay everyone. Life has a way of barging in.

I I I

The problem with getting Tayuya into the resets came chiefly from the fact that, whenever she was in town, she came in the company of Orochimaru.

Thus, it fell to Naruto to come up with a plan so dastardly, so amazing...

"Oy! Orochimaru! I was wondering if I could trade this Uchiha for a chance to get sweaty and intimate with Tayuya here?" The blond boy dumped the well-wrapped package that was Sasuke Uchiha at the feet of what looked like the Kazekage and thumbed one of his two bodyguards.

"Ku ku ku ku ku!" Orochimaru chuckled, while his guards looked startled. As the False Face disguise melted away, revealing the Snake Sannin's features below those of Temari's father, the legendary missing ninja chuckled arrogantly. "Tell me, how did you penetrate my disguise?"

"Kabuto brags in his sleep," Naruto answered flippantly. "I think half of town knows you are coming today. They've got this really interesting trap where Tsunade and Jiraiya, the Hokage and half of ANBU are waiting for you to drop in so they can ambush you."

The Snake Sannin gave a nod to his two guards and they split into four and vanished off to check into that information. Which didn't matter, as it was true. Well, the trap was easy enough to arrange, that is.

While they were waiting for those bodyguards to come back with that confirmation, Naruto kicked back on his heels, sitting on the bound Uchiha, and crossed his arms casually behind his head. "Hey, Orochimaru! I'm having dinner with Anko later on today. You want to come?"

"Kukuku, that sounds... amusing."

The Sound Four reappeared, kneeling at the sannin's feet. "He speaks the truth, Lord Orochimaru. Your former teammates are arranged in ambush with what appears to be half of their ANBU forces! The Hokage is there, and his face is exceptionally grim!"

"Remind me later, Kabuto must die." The sannin quipped to his underlings, "I spent a great deal of time on this trap and he's gone and outed my disguise, spoiling the whole party! Bring the boys."

The Snake Sannin and his bodyguards began to rush off, heading away from Konoha and the forces prepared to meet them there. Naruto found he was slung under three arms of the spider-guy, while Sasuke was laying over the shoulder of the big guy with a mohawk.

"You know, I don't think we've been properly introduced," Naruto observed casually, just as if he were not in the custody of his enemies.

The six armed guy opened his mouth to make a crack, "You do not deserve our names."

"Hey! I'm not a prisoner! I'm going along willingly, and figured we could be polite about this!"

The group stopped, and the spider-guy sprayed Naruto over every inch with golden webbing, mummifying him and binding him fast. "So you aren't our prisoner? Prove it!" the guy laughed.

Naruto Body Switched out with the six armed guy, trapping him within his own webbing, then hit him with a Thousand Birds, blowing a bloody, gaping hole through his chest and killing him instantly.

Sasuke's eyes went round.

Naruto buffed his fingernails, and cockily declared, "Proof delivered. I can resist if I want to."

Even Orochimaru was impressed. Performing even so basic a technique while completely immobilized was no small feat, and to Body Switch with another ninja was the hardest form of that trick of all. It could be done, but it put the user's skill at the technique up against the Body Switching skill of the one resisting it, and it was not an even comparison, as ability canceled out ability and there still had to remain enough of an advantage on the user's side to pull off a successful Switch. So it could happen, but only when the contest was greatly unequal, or when the subject of the Switch was caught off guard.

They could freely assume the Sound ninja had been surprised by the jutsu, they all were, but to pull off such a Switch when both bound and immobilized?

That was impressive, even by Orochimaru's standards. He smiled. "The one you killed was called Kidoumaru. These others are Tayuya, whom you seem to have heard of, Jiroubou has the Uchiha, and the two-headed person behind you are the brothers Ukon and Sakon. I, as you know, am Orochimaru."

"Yeah, yeah, the guy who can insert himself into an opponent and manipulate cells as an assassination technique from within their own body is behind me, ready to attack." Naruto waved it off flippantly, then grinned. "But it might interest you to know that my chakra is toxic, destructive even to my own body. I can recover from it. Don't count on them being able to. And that goes for the chakra-draining earth dome of the big guy, too."

"Hmm, interesting," Orochimaru licked his lips with a freakishly long tongue and took a step forward. "Don't tell me Kabuto leaked that information, as he didn't know it. Who are you, really?"

Naruto grinned. They'd fallen for that lie? SWEET! Chakra was chakra and being his own, it didn't hurt him a bit. Neither did the Kyubi's, as the seal was designed to prevent that. Really, what moron would his dad have been NOT to take that precaution?!

The boy posed. "I am Naruto Uzumaki, living container for the nine-tailed demon fox, most despised person in Konoha! And I'm tired of them holding me back and sabotaging my progress!"

Really, the best lie was ninety percent truth.

"Kukukuku," Orochimaru chuckled, stepping closer again, before gesturing to Tayuya.

"Tell me, why would you want a flat-chested tomboy like her? She's ugly and doesn't care for herself or her appearance. Her limp red hair is uninspiring and, sadly, her best feature. She has a foul mouth and curses constantly, as if completely unable to restrain herself. She is poorly mannered and crass, with no compassion for others. Why do you want her?"

Naruto stared the missing ninja straight in the eyes. "I was hoping I could convince her to change sides, turn traitor to you, and feed me information on all of your plans so that I, a genin, could defeat you personally."

"HAHAHAHAHA!!" the Snake Sannin broke out in a full-on belly laugh for the first time in all the while Naruto had known him.

Naruto shrugged and crossed his arms behind his head, examining the sky. "You want to know? Fine. My first team had a girl on it who was pink haired, flat chested, and the rudest thing under the sun to me. I can take a little abuse, but frankly I was looking for a chance to break her in memory of the teammate I left behind, who deserved to suffer."

"Fine, have her," the sannin, greatly amused, waved Naruto over to his subordinate, whose eyes widened in shocked surprise at this announcement.

Seeing via a quick glance that her leader wasn't going to defend her, the red haired Sound maiden assumed a battle stance and brought her flute up, glaring at Naruto. "Don't come any closer! You aren't going to break ME, you (Censored) (Censored), (HOO boy is this really Censored!)!"

Naruto raised a finger primly. "First rule, naughty girls who use filthy words do not get any treats."

"(Censored) like I (Censored), you (Censored) (Censored)! What (Censored) is the (Censored) of your (Censored) (Censored)!"

Naruto turned to wince at Orochimaru. "She is a foul one, isn't she?"

The pale sannin just grinned.

"Don't you (Censored) me! You (Censored) (Censored) of the (Censored) in your ancestors (Censored). The (Censored) mountains of the (Censored) in your (Censored) homeland would (Censored) the (pretty amazingly Censored) your (Censored) remains! Put a (Censored) balloon up your (Censored)."

The blond boy winced even worse. "Yup! That's pretty foul."

"(Censored)."

The next thing Tayuya knew, the boy had Body Switched for her flute. In a moment, he had her immobilized from a Temporary Paralysis technique shot at point blank range.

And the first thing he did was gag her, then whispered in her ear, "Now Tayuya-chan, you are going to get something I normally reserve for people that I really like. When you decide you want more of it, recall that I like nice girls who use pretty language, and take care to look their best, ok?"

In response the Sound maiden activated her cursed seal, going straight on to level 2, and overcoming the Temporary Paralysis with sheer chakra. Just as she reached up to pull away the gag to say something that probably ought to be censored to a very extreme degree, Naruto, who'd been waiting for this, simply reached out and removed her cursed seal.

The foul mouthed maiden collapsed in chakra-shock, unable to account for the sudden surge deserting her so completely like that.

As she lay helpless before him, Naruto began limbering up his fingers, calling out to the sannin, "Oy! Orochimaru! Want to learn a technique that can make any kunoichi turn traitor to her clan and village?"

"I'm more interested in little boys, myself," the Snake Sannin stepped close and waited for the technique, just as if it was not one of his own people who was about to be sacrificed to it.

Naruto shrugged. "Well, then, watch and learn. Maybe you can adapt it to perform on poor little Sasuke-chan later."

"Agreed." The traitor nodded.

Tayuya's eyes went round as Naruto's hands descended.

Half an hour later, after the girl's voice had recovered from shouting herself hoarse over begging to be allowed the joy and privilege of being his love slave and other, less appropriate, comments that were naughty even in context, the Snake Sannin looked up from the struggling and disgusted Uchiha to ask Naruto, "How did this part go again?"

The demon container shrugged nonchalantly. "Don't know. Something seems to be lost in the conversion. Don't ask me, I'm an expert on girls. Little boys are outside my interest."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll get it right in time." Orochimaru leered. "Now show me again on the girl."

"What would daddy say if he knew I was instructing pedophiles?" Naruto shook his head sadly, before wriggling his warm fingers in Tayuya's direction, politely not mentioning that this 'Jutsu trade' was strictly one-way, as he'd get to keep the girl, but Orochimaru would forget this conversation ever happened over the next reset.

"Good job?" Orochimaru guessed.

"Yes, that's probably it," the boy agreed, just to be agreeable and not start a fight in this situation.

"Yes, master. I'll be good," Tayuya muttered, exhilarated yet exhausted, eyes alight in eagerness as his hands descended. "No naughty words, not one... OooOOOoOOooooHHhh!!"

As Naruto worked away, he asked the sannin conversationally, "So, what would you teach me in return for showing you how to remove those cursed seals of yours?"

Orochimaru grinned. "Oh? I was planning to kill you to keep that knowledge from spreading."

"Yes, I know," the boy shrugged nonchalantly. "But think on it this way, there might be others who know the technique, in fact I can guarantee you there are, so you might need to know how to do it yourself so you can develop a next version of the thing that isn't subject to our counter."

Orochimaru licked his lips. "How about I let you live?"

"I wouldn't want you to make a promise you couldn't keep," Naruto quipped, then shrugged, going back to his work on Tayuya, who quivered bonelessly, too far gone to scream out his name. "No, all I expect is a few weeks of passion and pleasure out of my little Tayuya-chan here before you determine that you'd rather see the Kyubi moved to some other container. But I would like to learn a few jutsu in the meantime, just to spite those idiots in Konoha who never taught me any."

The sannin paused, as if considering.

Naruto shrugged, completely unconcerned, even as he drew in a copy of this Tayuya's memories. "Or you can just kill me, but that significantly lowers the odds of you ever learn how they're beating your 'unbeatable' cursed seal."

The pale freak grinned toothily. "You amuse me, boy."

"Thanks... I think," Naruto blinked, questioning that statement and somehow feeling dirtied by it.

Orochimaru brought a hand up to caress the boy's shoulder, only for it to be stopped short, sealed in a short wall of earth.

"No touching. The boy interested in disgusting old men is over there," the demon container pointed out Sasuke's bound form.

Enraged, the pale man pulled back, smashing apart Naruto's wall even as he freed his hand. With a nasty grin, the Snake Sannin formed handseals, and gloated, "Goodbye, boy."

The sannin's mouth stretched impossibly wide, and a serpent about as big around as Choji's middle began to slither out of the opening.

"Temporary Paralysis," Naruto stated in a bored tone, not even bothering to form a handseal, and saying the technique's name only out of politeness. The snake dropped as if dead, stuck half in and half out of Orochimaru's mouth, whose expression switched to one of comical surprise.

With a snake bigger around than his waist half in and half out of his mouth, the sannin was pretty helpless. Efforts to pull the sleeping serpent out with his arms proved human sized limbs were too small for the task, and the situation was downright funny as the sannin struggled to free himself.

In the end it was the big guy with the mohawk who pulled the serpent out, and even he had to switch on his cursed seal to get the power to do so. Snakes that big are HEAVY, and it was stuck in what was, for it, a small opening.

"Wow! That was pathetic!" Naruto deigned to notice the sannin's struggles just as he freed himself. Cheekily, he asked, "So, can you eat people too?"

In response, Orochimaru's tongue angrily snaked out, caught him up, and ate him, swallowing the blond genin whole, only to explode in thousands of Naruto a moment later, the boy emerging from the sannin's ruins carrying with him the Snake Sannin's sword, and a scroll he'd found inside.

The orange army turned to face the remaining two of the Sound Four, and grinned cheekily. "Now I think you should ask yourselves one question," they chorused. "Do I want to fight thousands of the guy who has already casually killed my boss, killed one teammate and taken another out of action?"

Tayuya moaned in a puddle of girly pleasure at his feet.

Jiroubou and the merged brothers broke and ran.

"Hm," the boy chortled, hands perched cockily on his hips. "I wasn't expecting that to go as well as it did. I'll have to remember this pattern for use again later. I may have to do this often, for a while. Oy! Tayuya! Get up! I'm going to go introduce you to our clan. You'll have friends and sisters there, if you are willing to be a friend and sister to them in turn."

He helped the young lady to regain her feet, and started the march back to Konoha. "We've got to get you ready for getting yourself out of this mess. I can't be expected to rescue you from the snake freak every time, you know! One of the first things you'll want to do is learn how to remove the curse seal. Here, it goes like this..."

I I I

It came as no surprise to anyone that the information the Kyubi imparted as to how to bring more people into the resets spawned a great deal of excitement and debate.

However, it also had some rather unexpected reversals.

"I want to bring Gai into the resets."

"No way! I want to be the one to bring Gai into them!"

"Okay. I don't care which of you two gets Gai. I want to bring Lee in."

"Hey! No fair! I wanted to bring in Lee!"

Yugao turned away from where the younger girls were arguing over who got the privilege of bringing in the Clan's two most favorite allies.

No sooner had the information become available than Yugao had tried to go bring in Hayate Gekko. But that had failed miserably. It seemed that what the Kyubi had taught was true, since Yugao was a claimed mate of Naruto's, she was unable to create a shelter in her mind for someone else she might love in a mate-like fashion.

Since she had once nearly loved Hayate that way, she found that an absolute barrier in her mind toward accepting him. The mere possibility that romantic feelings could exist for her former boyfriend again had prevented her from bringing the former flame into her mind. Her foxy nature prevented it.

Tsunade had also experienced failure, not once but twice on her attempts at this. Her first attempt was to try and bring in the Hokage, as he was the key factor to so much of this, getting him in would've been a great triumph.

But no such luck.

The Legendary Slug Sannin hadn't wanted to divulge details, but apparently the absolute trust required was lacking between them. There were too many hard memories of Sarutobi having favored Orochimaru, and she'd never liked the kind of choices the office of Hokage made one do. That, as well as some bad history she didn't want to get into, and she confessed that she just did not trust the old man as much as was apparently required.

Then Tsunade had tried going after her old teammate Jiraiya, but again, bad memories from their shared youth prevented her. Well, that, and also the fact that he was an openly flaming pervert - something that, by default, made it impossible for pure women to like or trust him.

Which, that last pretty much nuked any chance for any member of Naruto's clan to trust the Toad Sannin.

The same extended to Kakashi, and not only was he a pervert, but each and every member of Naruto's extended family had learned to despise the jonin for his lack of teaching methods, his blatant favoritism, and his complete inability to be fair to his students.

There was no trust possible there, not when you knew something like that about a person.

It also got suggested that Kurenai bring in Asuma, but she reported inability for most of the same reasons, not to nearly the same extent as with those others, but she still knew him to be a failure in important areas, so trusting him absolutely was next to impossible.

Even Ino reported that she couldn't trust her jonin teacher to that level. He sat around playing shogi with Shikamaru all day instead of training them, and then thrust them, unprepared, out into danger in the chunin tests. No, she couldn't report that she had the trust required to bring him in. He'd exposed her to danger she'd been totally unprepared for, apparently unconcerned for the consequences. That did not build trust.

This was turning out to be more awkward than anyone had supposed.

"I want Lee!"

"No! I get Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

I I I

Author's Notes:

What's given me so much trouble with this chapter was so much that all had to be dealt with at once.

I didn't cover it. I know I didn't. All I could manage to get was a few, and not enough at that.

Yes, Kiba's reaction to being in the resets has been all but completely glossed over. That's vital to get to, but you've got to understand I simply can't cover it all at once.

Trying has already shut me down the once. So, if your favorite, most anticipated moment hasn't occurred yet, well, all I can say is that if I try to cover everything than I produce nothing. So, what we'll try instead is to get that logjam unblocked by dealing with a few things at a time.

Best I can offer. 


	56. Chapter 56

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Six

by Lionheart

I I I

Seeing via a quick glance that her leader wasn't going to defend her, the red haired Sound maiden assumed a battle stance and brought her flute up, glaring at Naruto. "Don't come any closer! You aren't going to break ME, you (Censored) (Censored), (HOO boy is this really Censored!)!"

The next thing Tayuya knew, the boy had Body Switched for her flute. In a moment, he had her immobilized from a Temporary Paralysis technique shot at point blank range, and followed that up with a shot of his hands to her temples, accompanied by a surge of the most amazing memories.

"What was that last technique you used?" Orochimaru asked curiously.

"(Censored)." Tayuya was bending over, holding her temples and shaking her head over the recent input.

Naruto held up an admonishing finger. "Now, Tayuya-chan, remember the First Rule."

"Sorry!" the girl fell on her knees before him, hands help up, asking for an apology, actions that caused the rest of the Sound ninja to gape at her.

Naruto spoke nonchalantly over his shoulder to Orochimaru and lied, "Time Dilation Illusion based on the Kaleidoscope Sharingan's ability to trap victims for what subjectively feels like days."

While Naruto HAD such an illusion, what he'd really done was restore the redhead's memories of previous resets.

"Hmm, interesting," The Snake Sannin grinned, then directed a sharp look to Tayuya, who was still on her knees begging forgiveness. "And what is the First Rule?"

"Naughty girls who use filthy words do not get any treats," Tayuya recited automatically, without raising her head or changing her position of apology.

"Oh? Kukuku," the sannin chuckled, amused.

Smiling, Naruto bent over to tell Tayuya, "Well, I guess I could forgive the one slip, if it was a nice girl asking, that is."

The kunoichi instantly bowed in gratitude, then sprang up and away, using an Earth Style Wall to create a private changing area, which she landed in, and her hat and severely unflattering shirt came flying out moments later.

"Nice girl?" Orochimaru questioned.

Naruto shrugged and tossed a package in, and Tayuya emerged a moment later wearing it. Raising a finger, she quoted, "Nice girls use pretty language, and take care to look their best."

The rest of the Sound ninja's jaws dropped open, looking at her.

The former tomboy, who'd dressed like she'd robbed sackfuls of old clothes taken out of the dumpster of an all-boys orphanage, simply gleamed. She was in brightly colored Chinese style clothes of green and gold, complimenting her hair nicely, which had itself undergone a massive change from limp, dreadful stuff like seaweed plastered to her head, to an elaborate coiffeur, standing up with tinkling ornaments before handing back down in a lovely drape across her shoulderblades. Makeup and grooming were also present, having been applied by jutsu in seconds after her brief but thorough water jutsu bath.

She looked amazing, and the transformation was so thorough that Kidoumaru raised his hands and channeled chakra into an illusion negation technique.

To their shocked disbelief, there was no change.

Tayuya remained looking like a princess, instead of an orphaned street rat, as she calmly walked over and presented her hand to Naruto.

Her team gaped in amazement over how thoroughly she'd been broken.

"Those must be some treats," Jiroubou muttered.

"You have no idea," the girl returned with a brilliant courtly smile, causing eyes to bug out over the behavioral switch.

"Now," Orochimaru grinned menacingly. "What shall we talk about?"

I I I

The real Tayuya had Body Flickered out of her private changing area during the midst of all those washing and grooming jutsus meant to make her look nice, so the chakra trace of her disappearance was lost in the haze. She'd also created a Shadow Clone to leave behind.

The Naruto who'd encountered the Snake Sannin's group was already a clone, so did not have to plan so elaborate an escape.

The clones would then remain to engage the invaders in conversation. It was amazing what you could learn from even guarded enemies that way, and with Tayuya to expand on and expound the points raised, they were learning a lot, and quickly, about the inner operations of Orochimaru's organization.

Not having used the Cursed Seal Removal technique in front of him, the pale man was slightly less murderous, but only slightly. Their clones would usually end up dying before an hour had passed.

Naruto was still working on how to trick or wheedle a jutsu or two out of the Legendary Missing Ninja or his entourage, besides Tayuya, of course, who was already eagerly sharing her prized techniques with the clan. Stripped of all of her stage magic and nonessential trappings, what she had was a way to create puppets out of pure chakra, formed however she wished, and control them at a distance and indirectly through coded musical notes.

It was a devastating technique.

I I I

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

Kiba was shaking his head. "I never thought I'd see the day when Gai and Lee were prizes in a chick fight."

Naruto grudgingly nodded. "Yeah. I gotta admit I never thought that we'd be hearing that mantra in a girl's voice."

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

I I I

Hinata had finally gotten the Wood bloodline.

She'd only died six times during the experiments to find a way to activate it safely.

The regular process of bloodline theft was safe, if you had sufficient skill (which they did, being experts by this point). But the extra stuff needed to take that additional step and grab it out of unliving tissue stripped all of that safety away, and it became a very perilous procedure no matter your skill.

Still, as gruesome as that was, and as hard for Naruto to bear (he'd also gotten the Wood bloodline, and had only had to die four times before they'd discovered a method that gave it to him safely), having the Wood bloodline at last was an event well worth celebrating.

So they did.

They'd gained one of the most prized bloodlines ever, adding it on top of their kyubi-bestowed one, and though it was difficult (actually deadly) to perform Orochimaru's post-mortem bloodline theft, it was possible.

The process was, by now, well understood by all in Clan Kitsune. The trouble came from the details, all of the fine tuning to get it just exactly right, made worse that all of the final work was specific to each person.

Orochimaru would just blanket a large group and hope that one of them lived, so he could study that success and maybe eventually learn something that could make it safer. But Kitsune Clan didn't have that luxury. They wanted, no needed, the process to always work on specific people.

Namely themselves. No other subjects were required.

In order to grant someone Wood techniques, they had to put them through a gruesome experimental process to get it right. There were so many variables that everyone died the first few times they gave the bloodline to them. For a normal clan that would be a complete failure of a technique, but by using the resets and learning from each failed attempt, they could fine tune details until they eventually got a process that worked for one person.

Then they had to start all over to get a process that worked for someone else. What worked on Naruto, to grant him the valuable bloodline, did not for anyone else. The same for the specifics of Hinata's process not being a proper fit for anyone else.

They only had to get it to work once per person before they could repeat it precisely to grant the bloodline to them safely, every time. But each person had to go through the gruesome experimental stage for themselves.

They supposed that would be different if they had any identical twins to be performing this on. But, as it stood, everyone had a unique set of genetics that had to be carefully accounted for in its own particular way.

So far the record low was four deaths. A handful of others had matched their husband's record on that. The worst was nine, and Ayame didn't want to talk about it, but was very sweet about all she'd gone through to gain it.

However, initial success always got followed by testing Tsunade and Shizune put them through to verify that the new bloodline was stable and not going to degenerate on them later. They were rigorous by any standards. One could count on one of their deaths just being because of Tsunade TRYING to get the stolen bloodline to fail after a supposedly successful implant. Which, while unpleasant, no one begrudged her.

Naruto's family didn't want to find any unpleasant side effects like sterility or insanity or degeneration anywhere down the road. No Uchiha-ing for THIS Clan! They'd all much rather get those final details ironed out here, when it didn't matter so much, than have the thing fail on them years down the line when they'd thought they were free and clear.

In the end, Tsunade pronounced each process a success only once it was as stable as one to which they'd been born naturally. Of course, this was also a great deal of work, so for right now it was restricted to actual members of Clan Kitsune. Making a version that didn't account for the Kyubi's bloodline decorations would be a whole nuther set of calculations no one felt up to doing just yet (and, no one without it could, at the moment).

During this time, however, another cause for celebration was found, as Ayame earned her medical badge for having generalized Naruto's method of regeneration of Lee's chakra coils across a majority of birth defects, curing most of them.

Tsunade pronounced the process one of the greatest advances in medicine.

But it was also one of those things that would invariably be so popular they could hardly admit to owning it, to prevent wars being fought over them and their knowledge. And they couldn't share it, as the knowledge was too easily adapted into a torture technique that could permanently cripple a person.

As if to counter that, Temari announced her own happy news, demonstrating that she had discovered a way to generalize Ino's Painless Childbirth jutsu, by inventing a version that could be applied externally, without taking over the mind of the patient.

And, thus, earning her own medic status for having created a technique that could be taught to others, as it did not involve any major world-changing ninja secrets outside of the medical jutsu itself.

This doubling of official, Tsunade-approved medics in the Clan put pressure on the others to start getting their own projects done.

I I I

Kin stepped out onto the grass of Wave Country, having just crossed over the Great Naruto Bridge, and found her way to two untended graves she'd heard described.

Most people in Clan Kitsune knew each other's life stories very well by this point. Hers wasn't very interesting compared to some others, just another young kunoichi trying to make her place in a hostile world.

But Naruto?

Already the guy had been part of shaping the current ninja world, even if he didn't want to face it. Having personally fought, planned a successful move against, and ultimately participated in the destruction of one of Hidden Mist's Legendary Seven Swordsmen, was no small accomplishment!

But that wasn't what Kin was there for.

No, because buried beside that ninja legend was another body, that of a small boy no older than herself (or how old she appeared to be, these resets really caused some confusion over the topic of one's age!), and trapped within the genetic code of that buried body was the secrets of the Ice bloodline, one of the few that could argue any equality with their newly acquired Wood line.

That was what Kin was there for. She'd gotten Tsunade's approval for her medical badge if she could restore the lost Ice bloodline to their clan.

She noted absently that the big sword Zabuza once carried was missing. It'd been left there as his headstone, she was told. But it wasn't there now. Still, due to her local guides, she knew these were the right graves.

"Earth's Gaping Maw!" She called out a technique after forming the proper handseals, and the jutsu meant for moving aside enough dirt to create an instant pit trap cleared away the soil to reveal the two coffins.

Kin looked behind herself and smiled. "Alright, open them up."

Behind stood a well-sprung carriage, beyond the skill of most local artisans. She'd read about it in one of Konoha's library books, a storybook about fairy tales, to be honest, and Naruto had been kind enough to make her one.

The two wooden horses that stood in the traces, having drawn the thing here, were her own creation. They'd all begun using and experimenting with their newest bloodline as soon as they'd gotten it, and growing instant puppets was one such operation of the technique.

Wooden horses were superior to normal ones in that the puppets were both stronger and faster, and they never required any rest. So, so long as she'd left a Shadow Clone in the driver's seat to control them, Kin could (and had) traveled the journey in one night and slept through the entire trip!

There was a very comfortable bed inside that carriage.

Springing from the sides of that carriage, two wooden footmen, soldiers really, but also a specific office like butler, the 'fetch and carry' men of aristocratic households, came down and climbed down into the open pits to open the coffins therein.

Then, after doing the preparations themselves so Kin didn't have to get her hands dirty, they sprang back to the carriage, and brought down two bound men, thugs left over from Gato's organization that she'd found trying to illegally charge tolls of travelers across the bridge.

They were thugs and thieves, charging rent on a property they did not own, but also enemies of her husband, and therefore her family and herself, so Kin felt no remorse at all for what she was about to do to them.

She formed a very long series of handseals, before calling out, "Impure Resurrection technique!"

The two leftover bandits collapsed, then rose again moments later as the duo of Zabuza and Haku.

"You're a girl!" Kin observed in surprise.

"I am," Haku admitted, nodding once in confirmation.

"But you told my husband, Naruto, you were a boy!" Kin objected.

"On the road, especially without a clan's protection, it drew less attention," Zabuza's raised state volunteered. "So I ordered her to conceal her gender when around others, but to practice in private."

"Why?"

"There are uses for a mature kunoichi, infiltration and such, that require refined manners and practiced femininity. But such were of no use to us until she was of a proper age to use them. So she practiced in private, but played a boy in public to avoid attracting unwanted complications. The split improved her skills at acting, and were a further benefit on the run, confusing Hunter Ninja, and so on."

Kin thought it over a second, before shrugging and declaring, "Fair enough. You two, go down and grab your real bodies. I need the genetic data of Haku's and I promised Anko I'd bring back Zabuza's so she could experiment on him."

"Why did you raise us this way?" Zabuza asked, going to do as she'd asked.

Kin noted with a quirked eyebrow that Haku deferred to her former leader when he was taking the lead, and remained quiet in the background. "Two reasons, really. One is you are, or were, one of Mist's Seven Swordsmen, and while our clan knows one sword style, yours is another, and one we wouldn't mind having, especially if it is as great as tales say. The second is simple, I need Haku's genetic data to try to recreate her bloodline, and thought I could probably get an advantage doing that if I could question her as to specifics. If nothing else, she can teach us her techniques once we do get it copied, so we don't have to reinvent them on our own. We're already doing that last with the First Hokage, raising him to have him teach us his bloodline powers."

"Copying a bloodline out of dead tissue is impossible," Haku informed her calmly, displaying the medical knowledge Naruto said she'd shown in life.

"Not for us," Kin smugly replied, raising her arms to form a handseal and call out, "Birth of Trees!"

The giant sequoia spring forth out of the ground was proof enough, even if it only did reach about roof-height instead of its full potential growth. But her clan were still getting used to the techniques.

They had a lot of improvement yet to do.

Zabuza had reclosed the coffins and loaded them on the luggage rack, so Kin motioned them inside, while her wooden footmen reboarded the conveyance and her Shadow Clone directed the puppet horses to take the carriage back to Konoha.

"So," Kin had folded the bed out of the way, and was now using it as a bench, "Tell me about yourselves."

Zabuza hung his head. "I am roasting in Hell for my crimes."

Kin gave a pained grimace. "I meant: What were you like in life?"

"A sinner who delighted in committing crimes for which I now roast in Hell." Zabuza responded.

The former Sound girl adopted a false smile to cover her grimace. She'd forgotten how... distant and remote the subjects of this jutsu were. They didn't use it often, anymore. No real good reasons to, well, except for the First Hokage for reasons already named. Turning to the other girl, she asked, "And how about you?"

"I was a tool." Haku stated politely yet woodenly.

"She was my servant, so perfectly devoted, pure, kind and loyal that with her unblemished heart she resides in Heaven, while I burn in Hell," Zabuza mourned.

Kin winced. This looked like it was going to be a long trip.

I I I

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Stop!" Naruto waved his hands for silence, interrupting the argument. As he got attention refocused on him, he used his rarely employed executive power to halt the ongoing arguments. "Okay, this is how it's going to happen. We're going to judge by two criteria before any other consideration. First will be ease of access. We want our allies aware of previous memories as early into each reset as possible, and it does no good to assign someone to bring in a person they will have trouble getting to. So, by that measure, Tenten has first dibs on Lee and Gai."

"YES!!" Tenten vigorously pumped a fist, having been one of those arguing.

"Second criteria will be blocks to romance," Naruto declared, shaking his head. "It would be worthless to bring a guy in for fifty resets, only for a girl to fall in love with him and have her foxy protections eject his shelter from her mind, ruining all those memories and experiences he'd accumulated. So, judging by that measure, Tenten loses all rights to Lee, as he's her age and has already been infatuated with her."

"Aww!" The weapons mistress mourned, dropping. "But he's my closest friend outside the Clan!"

"That's exactly our problem," Anko agreed over folded arms. "Other than already being taken, you have no barriers against falling in love with Lee. So, to prevent future complications, you shouldn't be the one bringing him in."

"Exactly," Naruto agreed firmly. Then, turning to Tenten, he said, "So, if you want to bring in Gai, he's yours. We'll count the age difference and teacher-student relationship (coupled with his honor not to abuse that) as a barrier against romance, and therefore a safe bet."

The girl considered for a moment before nodding brightly. "Alright!"

"And, by the same token, Temari has access to Gaara, and we'll count their being brother and sister an excellent barrier," Naruto continued evenly.

People were nodding, coming to accept that things were being resolved fairly, if not exactly how they would've liked them to be.

"Sorry, not possible."

All eyes turned round to face the Kyubi, who'd spoken, and who elaborated as soon as she had their attention. "People can only be brought into the resets by placing them under my aegis, so to speak. And Gaara has his own demon. I may be more powerful than Shukaku, but not enough to subdue him utterly - which is what it would take to shelter his container. Sorry."

"Okay," Naruto sighed. "So no Gaara. That's bad, as I was sort of counting on him. But okay, we can deal with that. Temari can bring in Kankuro instead. He's still a strong fighter, a reasonable mind, and a good guy. I like him, and want him in the resets."

"Can do," Temari nodded agreeably, then smiled. "To tell the truth, Kankuro is going to be easier for me. We may argue, but he's sane. I've always known he'd back me in the end. Gaara would be a... struggle to trust sufficiently."

She got several nods of fervent acknowledgement of her point.

"Hana already has Kiba," Naruto plowed on. "So that's taken care of, and I'm glad to have him in."

Kiba smiled at the acceptance of the Alpha Male. It meant more than anyone outside an Inuzuka could possibly believe.

"I could bring in Shino!" Hinata volunteered.

"Sorry, not possible."

Once again, all eyes turned to Kyubi, who rolled over and lounged.

"But why not? He's trustworthy, and I like him as a friend," Hinata protested before facing her husband. "Plus, as my teammate I have easy access, and I find his bugs too icky for any romance potential."

'As if there was any chance of that,' half the clan thought aloud. Hinata was almost proverbial in her devotion to Naruto.

"Because Shino is an Aburame, and they are not one, they are many," Kyubi answered with a yawn. "The pathways you might use to tap a linkage into his mind are the same ones his clan have adapted to link to their bug symbiots. So that port is already taken, so to speak. You'd have to kill off his bug swarms to get him, and he would not take kindly to that, if he survived the trauma of their loss."

"Oh," everyone sagged, a little depressed.

He would have been a good ally to have, too! Not only for his own potential, which was great, but for the fat that it could have brought Team 8 complete into the resets, dropping awkward moments significantly.

Team Gai had a similar hangup. Where soon they hoped to have Gai himself, plus Lee, and they had already had Tenten since practically the start of the clan, Neji was just out of the question. No one liked or trusted him, least of all his cousin Hinata.

Neji went out of his way to not be a likable person.

Naruto started scratching his head. "Well, Ayame can bring in her dad, at least."

I I I

Author's Notes:

Some of that 'not everything goes their way' sort of luck is striking right now, in that people whom I have nothing against, and would be really useful (like Shino and Gaara) are being blocked for no faults of their own.

Well, I guess Gaara is still a psychopath.

A big part of why I didn't let them have the Hokage was, by that point, if they got him there would literally be no more challenges to face.

Already I am having a hard time. Wrapping this up is so different to starting it! At first I was afire with ideas and possibilities! Now it's a totally different style of writing, as instead of plunging headlong into 'Wow! Look what I can do with THIS!' I am being forced to bring everything quietly to a close, wrap up hanging threads, tie up plotlines, and start putting away all of my toys.

Although the idea of a sequel is starting to be more and more attractive to me. I wonder why? 


	57. Chapter 57

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Seven

by Lionheart

I I I

I think I made a mistake.

This is not about closing out a story. That will happen on its own. The labor I am to perform here is to have fun, and to bring you all there to share it with me. Anything else is a waste.

Actually, having taken a brief break, I find I'm all afire with fresh ideas again!

Besides, rushing this to completion is only possible if I neglect to spend any screen time developing the side characters I am only now introducing, and that, I think, would be an error.

I I I

"So, Anko." Kin walked into the no-longer-secret underground lab, calling, "I know why we wanted Haku (who, as it turns out, is a girl). But why were you so interested in my bringing back Zabuza's corpse?"

Zabuza, reanimated by the Impure Resurrection technique, followed in after carrying the coffin that contained his original body. Haku's was already in the corner of the secret lab where the gene stealing was going to be done.

"Another project of Roachy-chan's," Anko shrugged, looking up from her work doing so. "I figured Hinata had such success with hers (and she did help out the Clan greatly), that I could do the same: bring one of my old teacher's discarded projects to life and make it into something that could help us all out in the future, and perhaps earn my medical badge in the bargain."

Kin blinked. "I thought you couldn't recall those years."

Anko grimaced. "I was no longer able to put up with wondering about my past. I needed answers, so I had Ino delve into my memories to open up the blocks that were put in there over the period of my apprenticeship to Roachy-chan. Frankly, though they seemed bad at the time, it was worse not knowing what it was I'd been up to as his student."

"So, what project are you working on?" Kin leaned closer to look.

"One of the many routes the Traitor Sannin pursued trying to find a path to immortality," Anko answered. "There weren't many who'd succeeded at this before him, so he had more theories than facts about what to pursue. So, as usual with him, he devoted effort into them all before he found a route that promised success, then abandoned all others."

Kin resumed blinking. "So, you've found a secret to eternal youth?"

"No, not actually." The special jonin grinned up at the former Sound ninja. "That was never much of a part of his quest. Roachy-chan was always more interested in the 'How do I live through the destruction of my body' type of living forever, since he's always been a bit reckless in combat. Besides, we already have the eternal youth part covered through our 'decorations'."

Kin was nodding. "Yeah, once I understood the situation I have to admit that I pretty much expected the Kyubi "decorations" to include a component like that. After all, she doesn't want Naruto to die on her, so it only makes sense that her revisions to his body would have some way to keep it in optimal condition indefinitely. Since she seems to be playing straight with her actions for now, all us female Clan members got the same enhancements, so our bodies will end up in optimal condition indefinitely as well. Which," the young kunoichi smoothed down the shirt against her young and trim sides, "I have to admit is not the least of my joys over being a part of this Clan."

Anko snorted. "You ought to have seen the rest of us when we figured that out. We took the opportunity to get Kyubi another rather extended grooming session with Naruto... strictly as a personal thank-you gift from our side. I know that Naruto never minds doing that for one of his ladies."

Kin gave a happy bounce. "I can't say I'd mind more myself, but," she fluffed out her hair, "As I am not personally responsible for seeing to it that our clan will probably outlive Konoha... Yeah. I'd say she deserved it."

Anko spent a moment in sober thought over that.

There'd always been ninja organizations, but they got destroyed or remade at fairly even intervals, historically speaking, and nobody stayed on top for long. Konoha was actually coming to the end of the historical average for anyone holding the 'top dog' position, and the expected rot and corruption of an aged champion on its way out had already set in, with council members and clans more concerned about petty self interests than in preserving the village.

It was a thought that bore thinking on.

Nothing was more certain in history than people getting overrun the moment they're sure they couldn't be. The moment you thought you were so strong that you couldn't be defeated, you got beaten by somebody. It occurred so often in history that it was like some cosmic joke, or something.

Now the idea of outliving Konoha had occurred to her, Anko had to admit that not only did she like the idea, but they, as a Clan, ought to investigate going into some serious efforts to ensure that. Because Konoha was nearing the end of its expected lifespan, but their Clan was only just starting out.

"So, what are you making? Can I help?" Kin leaned over to ask.

Anko shook herself out of such thoughts. "Sure. I could use a fresh mind on this problem. You already know of our projects looking into the various types of elemental clones. Well, Orochimaru had already found out the secrets of most of those, and he'd had a brilliant intuitive leap. He thought of creating a clone, not out of chakra elements, but out of medical means."

"Huh?" Kin was lost on that little turnabout.

Anko smiled back at her. "A clone made out of flesh and blood, grown instead of summoned. Not a chakra construct, but an actual living body created via advanced medical techniques, as real as the one you were born with. It was his hope to hop from body to body, and at first he'd thought to use his own."

The Sound maiden was now blinking in amazement. "Wow! So how far did he get with that?"

The darkhaired special jonin went back to scowling over her sparse work notes. "Creating Flesh Clones? Nowhere, unfortunately. He'd sobered up in the morning and forgot about the whole deal. I'm having to start on this from scratch. But before he passed out from too much liquor, he'd speculated that this could turn our Impure Resurrection technique into a Pure one because the spirit would have a copy of its own living body to inhabit."

Anko shrugged. "It's the same line of thought that eventually led him to what he's doing now: A spirit that jumps from body to body as the old ones get damaged beyond the reasonable ability to repair. With this, he was going to use multiple younger and whole copies of his own body. But he ended up using other peoples, because of the added bonus of throwing their bloodlines and special powers onto the heap with his."

"And Zabuza is going to be your experimental model for this?" Kin blinked in shock, then called out back over her shoulder. "You hear that, Demon-Boy! Anko here is working on a way to drag your sorry spirit out of hell. So you could be a mortal again!"

The body animated by the legendary swordsman's spirit was suddenly kneeling before Anko in a position of utmost humility. "Redeem my soul from hell, and I shall be your devoted servant! I shall live as Haku did, to be redeemed from my countless crimes!"

Anko looked up at Kin and smirked. "Well, that's promising."

I I I

The Kitsune Clan compound was, as always, awash in activity. There were clones everywhere performing techniques, practicing skills, and generally busy with the everyday activities of ninja life.

Over in one of the massive courtyards a group of clones were listening to the Impure Resurrected form of the First Hokage teach them about his bloodline powers, getting tutoring in his gift and asking questions on techniques.

Over in another courtyard, the Impure Resurrected form of the Second Hokage was teaching people what he could of his impressive Water abilities, while Shizune evaluated whether that was a bloodline gift they could copy.

They hoped it was, and things were looking promising.

Lately a new crowd had formed, and the Fourth Hokage's animated body was doing some tutoring of his own.

The reason for this was very simple. Naruto was his son, and the pattern he once used to get that fact revealed to the village was no longer something they could duplicate. It had required Kurenai's unwitting assistance back before she'd joined in the resets, and so it was not a pattern she recalled or could duplicate. She hadn't even 'lived' through it before being awakened, and that made replicating that pattern precisely monstrously difficult.

Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, was a shrewd judge of character, and Naruto was the only one they knew who could act convincingly enough to fool the old guy. Kurenai could, and HAD, tried going through the motions as Naruto told her the lines she'd once used, but the results had not convinced the old guy. This despite months spent in practice, getting coached by Naruto and refining it all in active practice during live attempts to convince their Hokage.

It was a very exacting set of cues and leads that eventually got the current village leader to let slip who Kakashi's former teacher was. Naruto was adroit enough to duplicate things to that level of exactness, but no one else was, and a big part of that conversation depended on Kurenai.

Without Sarutobi dropping that little hint, the pattern they knew for getting that information released to the village at large didn't work. If Naruto told anybody, the Hokage let the village council discipline him for spreading false rumors. And if anybody else said a word they got executed.

It was a secret their current Hokage was willing to kill for. Apparently he was THAT certain it was needed for keeping Naruto safe from his father's foes.

Who knew? He could even be right. The Clan didn't exactly have any long range predictive ability for repercussions to events outside of the resets.

But the point was, they didn't care. Their Naruto was not some ignorant genin or Dead Last, like the Hokage felt he was. The resets had refined him to the point that if the secret could ever be revealed, it was safe to do so now. And really, surrendering happiness and freedom in exchange for safety was generally a poor choice in any case, as things never turned out how you wanted them to. Preserving a life, only to make that life not worth living, was not any sort of gain or accomplishment.

The Uchiha had enemies as well, yet no one shoved Sasuke so far down into a disguise that he'd been hated and warped by abuse and misery. Although Sasuke was a bad example, as he'd chosen to delve into misery on his own.

A classic case of 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'. The Last Uchiha had all of the tools for a happy life, admiration of others and kindness, but he'd chosen not to permit himself happiness.

However, he'd made that choice himself. No one had done it to him.

Still, they'd needed another plan for how to reveal to the village that Naruto was the son of their most beloved Hokage. Until they could do that, the hate and unreasoning anger the village felt against him would not abate, and that meant no chunin promotion for the lad.

Ironically, they were now in almost the reverse position of the one they'd had before. For a great many resets Naruto had a system where he could get the village to like him enough to allow his promotion, but couldn't deal effectively with the invasion or Orochimaru. Now they knew a dirty trick whereby they could reliably kill the stinking pedophile, using his own arrogance against him, but the route that once worked to achieve the appreciation of the village so he could get a chunin promotion was no longer valid.

Strange are the twists of Fate.

One of their preferred notions was to get Naruto acting close enough to the Fourth for the resemblance to take hold in and of itself and create some spark they could then expand on. That included acting and dressing like his dad, but it also had to extend to fighting like his dad, and that meant Naruto had to learn his father's techniques.

Spiraling Sphere was simple. Jiraiya was so easy to get addicted to the Sexy Paradise Illusion that anytime they wanted to they could effectively reduce the Toad Sannin to Naruto's slave. Since the super pervert knew how to use the Fourth's legendary attack, he could teach it to the Clan no problem.

The problem came in the other half of the Yellow Flash's unbeatable combo, the speed technique that enabled him to slaughter a thousand Rock ninja with his unbeatable attack.

The Flying Thunder God technique that gave the Yellow Flash his name was not available on any scroll they knew of, nor did the Toad Sannin know how to use it. The one time Sarutobi tried to pass on Naruto's inheritance, it had been discovered that the scrolls that had once been supposed to be part of it had been stolen long ago. That no one had been heard of using the Fourth Hokage's techniques said that whatever security seals or codes had been on the scrolls themselves had probably worked, perhaps even destroyed them, sealing the secrets of those techniques forever.

So, for all anyone could tell, that secret had died with the Fourth Hokage.

So they'd brought him back to make him teach them. It seemed pretty simple and straightforward to the members of Clan Kitsune. If only the Fourth knew it, and only the Fourth could teach it, then he would teach them...

... in spite of being dead.

There was a lesson to be learned there. In fact, it opened wide possibilities that even Naruto's new family were not sure they were quite willing to take. The possibility was that no technique could truly be lost so long as they knew of a dead guy who'd once used it.

Thankfully, availability of bodies was somewhat limited, otherwise they could use this to learn every technique ever practiced in the ninja world. As it was, however, ninja routinely destroyed the bodies of their fallen comrades lest the secrets of their village be unlocked by enemies studying their corpses. Even with the rare exceptions, there weren't all that many bodies to find.

Thankfully, they had a few.

I I I

"You know I worry about him," Hana told Shizune, watching Naruto practice under the tutelage of the animated Fourth Hokage. "That's his father out there, and..."

The Inuzuka heiress sighed.

The Slug Sannin's apprentice shook her head softly. "No, not really. It isn't the same. The Impure Resurrection technique gives us only a narrow window into what the man truly was. It's more like a puppet influenced by a dead man than a living, breathing person. Something's there, but it isn't the same."

Hana folded her arms, still looking on the scene. "But still, it isn't good for a boy, an orphan at that, to have so little reaction to his father like that."

The more experienced medic drew in a deep breath, then let it out again. "I'd say you're right, but we have a few factors complicating things. On the one hand, Naruto ought to be furious. His father left him with nothing, no family, no house, no money, no one to care for him... none of what truly matters to a young child, or what they need growing up, did his father provide. Naruto was left in the harshest of all possible environments to develop in, and it has stunted him still. There's all sorts of things our husband is still overcoming, left as relics of that extremely harsh and lonely childhood."

Hana scowled herself. Family was Pack, and you didn't turn your back on it. A failure to uphold ones pack was unforgivable, the most serious failure anyone could ever perform, worse than murder and worse than treason. "There are a number of people who are responsible for that," she growled.

Shizune nodded sadly. "Yes, Sarutobi is a big one. He was responsible for the secret of the Kyubi getting out, which led to all of the hatred. He tried to put a lid on it with that law of his, but it didn't do anything useful. That cat was already out of the bag; the village blamed Naruto for the loss of their beloved Fourth Hokage, the damage caused by the Kyubi, and just about everything else that went wrong at the time. Then Sarutobi is responsible for trying to keep Naruto's parentage a secret, which was just about the only thing that could have stopped all of that hatred from forming. So the situation as it exists was more or less authored by Sarutobi."

Hana's grimace slipped, then she dropped her head. "I could hate him for that, but I know he honestly thought he was doing best. Foolishness isn't the same as treason, in spite of the fact that it can do more harm, sometimes."

Shizune's lips grew thin. "The person I blame most is Jiraiya. He is Naruto's godfather - and the only purpose or reason for the existence of the role of godfather is to take over the role of father should the child's parents ever lose their ability to care for it. That's been the one job of godfather for the entirely of recorded history, stretching back thousands of years(1). That Jiraiya ran away from his responsibilities, leaving Naruto with nothing instead of raising the boy himself, is nothing short of reprehensible. It is an utter and complete betrayal of trust, not only that he effectively left him to die, alone among a village full of enemies, but that when Jiraiya came back he refused to give Naruto any training without being bribed for it. Legally, he is the closest thing to a father Naruto has, and you shouldn't have to parade a naked body in front of your father to get him to teach you anything."

"So we geld him," Hana stated.

"At least," Shizune answered seriously. "Even if you want to grant that he could not take care of a kid himself - which is not true, as he spent most of his time lazing around and partying instead of in any real danger, then he still had responsibility for arranging Naruto's care and he didn't even bother to do that. It's no wonder, in light of all he's learned, that Naruto has trust issues with authority figures after discovering things like that. He's never truly had an authority figure who was deserving of trust. Even Sarutobi could have done more than gone out with him for ramen once a month, no matter what disguise or appearance he wanted to be maintaining. A leader is allowed to take note when an orphan is being abused, and do something about it."

Hana growled in the back of her throat.

Shizune formed a fist. "And then we come back to Kakashi. The man was a student of Naruto's father, so had spent enough time with him he had no real excuse not to notice the resemblance. But even if you grant him that, say he had no interest in the boy BEFORE becoming his teacher, he darn well should have suspected something AFTER being named Naruto's jonin instructor! The name Uzumaki was only ever held by one other person in this village, and he'd been close enough to the Fourth to know who he was dating! Kakashi shows a criminal disinterest in his student to have NOT figured out Naruto was the son of his own teacher! Anyone with any situational awareness at all could've figured that one out! He wouldn't even have had to look too deeply. His own life experiences should have provided all of the evidence that he needed, and Crackashi spends all of his time musing on his past!"

The apprentice to the Slug Sannin visibly tried to calm herself. "Kakashi has no excuse for not knowing, if not originally, then later. And knowing, he had a responsibility to help out. As his father's friend and student, Kakashi was next in line for being the adult responsible for caring for Naruto through his life. Heck! He didn't even have to do THAT! All he'd have had to do was his JOB! If he'd been even a halfway decent teacher to Naruto, our husband would not have developed the trust issues he's facing now! And without that, he'd be able to enjoy the presence of his own father, even if it is in impure form!"

Hana looked over to her friend, and sister via marriage. "Hey, I'm going to go kill someone brutally. Want to come along?"

"Sure!" Shizune shot her back a grin, before they both disappeared.

The bodies of Jiraiya and Kakashi would later be discovered, having been put to death in some of the most agonizing ways imaginable.

Ironically, the assassination of a couple high-ranking Konoha ninja put that town on alert, and thus far more ready to counter the Sand/Sound invasion.

I I I

Contrary to popular opinion, Gai and Lee did not spend every waking moment shouting about 'The Power of YOUTH!'

This is not to say they were sober, serious shinobi, but they did have their quiet moments when things had to pause and be considered. THEN they could go back to the sport chants and ridiculous physical training levels.

One of those quiet moments was occurring right now, at the Kitsune Clan Compound, after the two had been led through on a (very LOUD) guided tour of the facilities where the two fitness nuts had seen the chakra training, the sparring, people practicing Zabuza's sword techniques and receiving tutoring from the various Hokages.

Gai and Lee had immediately noted, and complained about, the lack of extreme physical fitness training, but even that had been explained.

They'd even seen the forges where Zabuza's animated self had been guiding Naruto into somewhat more accurate copies of his gigantic sword.

The trio of Naruto, Gai and Lee had paused in the forges where Naruto had intended to outfit the pair of new recruits with armor. But they'd run into some immediate snags there, as well.

"No!" Gai crushed an armored breastplate in his fist and tossed it away. "I cannot wear something so unyouthful! I would tear it apart like a set of pajamas the moment I got going!"

"The pajamas thing is actually kind of the point," Naruto tilted his head. "It had to be lightweight and flexible enough for us to wear it."

Indeed, Naruto's original armor designs would've been both heavier and stronger, save for the fact that those who wore it could not bear very much weight. So sacrifices had had to be made in order to preserve mobility and maximize flexibility.

It turned out Gai and Lee wanted MUCH heavier armor - increased protection mostly, but they weren't afraid of heaviness, considering they played with weights that would flatten most jonin. To demonstrate his teacher's point, Lee took hold on one of those armored plates and tore it like tissue paper.

So Naruto designed a much heavier style of armor. He kept the articulation, so one could still move and stay flexible within it, provided greatly increased weight couldn't slow you down (which, for anyone but Gai and Lee, it would. But the strength monsters could bound around like butterflies in it, and if they were slowed at all, only they could tell).

But the protection of the new sets was so much superior that soon everyone wanted one, planning to get strong enough to use them later, after the loops had ended. But then Gai suggested reversed weight seals; instead of making an object heavier to train under, it made it lighter, so even the gentlest and slenderest of Naruto's wives could use the much heavier armor styles right away, rather than later.

And so they did, and in the process gained a degree of protection that would have impressed anyone. The old sets, the extremely lightweight ones, could have been penetrated by a good blow by a strong arm. The new ones? Forget it. If it wasn't an optimized armor-piercing weapon, it stood no chance. Unless you were facing a close combat specialist (Zabuza, Gai and Lee representing the extreme case of such individuals) the new armor could effectively ignore most purely physical attacks.

And that was just the way they liked it.

Of course, that still left them vulnerable to chakra or elemental techniques, illusions, tricks, traps and so on. Explosive notes could crush you despite your armor. And then, of course, there were giant summon monsters who could squash armored ninja like ants. So they were still far from safe.

But they were much, much closer.

There were inevitable weak points, of course. A long, furry tail is almost impossible to armor properly, as are parabolic ears. Because of them, there were places where a canny attacker could make a telling strike even without great strength or specialty weapons.

But no one has ever died from getting a bit shaved off one ear. Well, there was Van Gogh, but painters don't count.

In spite of Naruto's family all knowing how to paint.

After much labor in the workshop getting the new armor heavy and strong enough to meet the pair's approval, Naruto led the duo out to have lunch. A picnic was already laid out for the entire clan on blankets, where they all had an excellent view of the new Hokage monument.

It had been carved up, replacing the former faces with Gai and Lee in their 'Nice Guy' poses, teeth somehow glinting and thumbs up, with a banner carved beneath them reading, "Welcome Gai and Lee!"

I I I  
Author's Notes:

Actually, you know what? I think I said all that was worth saying in the prequel note.

Enjoy the story!

(1) The Roman Catholic tradition of having Godparents was actually a much older Roman convention. Life has always been dangerous, more especially in barbarian times, and one could never tell for certain that parents were going to live to raise their child. So the tradition of having someone else prepared and in a position to take over in case of need is probably one of the oldest of all recorded offices.

The Jews even had something similar, going back much longer. So the office is literally THOUSANDS of years old! Older even than the concept of Tyrant, which was a Greek office infamous for its despotic power.

The role of godfather is quite literally older than our recorded history. 


	58. Chapter 58

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Eight

by Lionheart

I I I

Yugao stood before an audience consisting of Clan Kitsune, plus Kiba, Gai, Lee and Sakura, and strode before the large war maps hanging behind her.

She was in the midst of a lecture on their spy situation.

"Konoha has never been very good at information gathering. Our position as the strongest village has led to some degree of arrogance. Even some jonin feel it hardly matters what the other villages are up to - that's a mistake. It leads to unpleasant surprises, things like this Sand/Sound invasion." She used a swagger stick to point, indicating the position of the attacking forces, as they'd be when it came time for the invasion. Then she snorted.

"Besides, information gathering missions aren't glamourous. A good one is actually quite boring, so adrenaline junkies sneer at them. But they also don't pay anything, as the client is Konoha itself. Much more profitable in the short term to use our ninja on paying missions. But it costs us in the long run."

Yugao took a deep sigh and shook her head sadly. "Also, deep cover is where the real gold mines of information are, and we are too tender hearted to do that to many of our kunoichi. I can't say I mind that policy, as it's pretty callous to throw away your ninja's lives on missions like that, where even if they succeed their lives are ruined and they're gone forever, but it does cost us in the intelligence department."

The jonin swordsmistress and ANBU parked her swagger stick on a shoulder. "Sand is far more ruthless than we are, and has a much better intelligence setup. When their Daimyo demanded they reduce their ninja forces, sending those missions he wanted done off to Konoha, the Kazekage selected only the weakest shinobi to be eliminated, and took them off the rolls of active duty by condemning them to deep cover assignments. It paid off. Although quite a number of those agents have been killed or captured over the years, they still have some of the best information sources out there among any of the five major villages. Konoha has relied on our ally's intelligence network for years to supplement our own rather weak one. Heck, if it wasn't for Jiraiya running his own independent setup, or information passed on to us by Sand, Konoha wouldn't have anything worth calling a spy network. It's there, we couldn't call ourselves a ninja village if we didn't make any rudimentary efforts, but not good enough to stop us from being blindsided by events. And an invasion is a pretty major event to have not seen at all."

Yugao used her swagger stick to wave toward a second board, this one covered by pictures of Kabuto and other traitors. "Of course, as can be observed by how deeply Orochimaru has us penetrated, we can be said to suck even worse on counter-espionage. The secrets of Konoha aren't very secret to the other ninja villages, who have a disturbingly accurate picture of the major events that go on in our home. That information makes their ninja stand out less when they visit us, and that in turn makes us easier for them to infiltrate. It's a steady cycle. The more they know about us, the better their penetration efforts go, and the more they CAN know about us. To be frank, we've got more undercover work going on here than most brothels. And all of it is targeted against the integrity of this village."

The jonin turned back to face her audience and sighed, holding both ends of her swagger stick and bending it slightly. "Even should we eliminate our entire current crop of spies and enemy infiltrators, Konoha would not be secure. Too many villages have too complete, and too recent ideas about our activities. They would be able to infiltrate us again. Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but you must understand that even as thorough a housecleaning as the resets offer us isn't going to be enough on its own. We must also figure out a way to stop the flow of new spies coming in to replace the ones we eliminate."

Yugao walked to her podium and set down the swagger stick. "That concludes this briefing. Any questions?"

Hinata raised her hand. On being called on, she stood up shining with brilliant trust in their mutual husband. "Konoha is only a village, and Naruto already knows most of the people in it by sight. Why don't we have him memorize the faces of everyone else? That way, when strangers arrive, we'd be better able to identify them!"

Hana stood up. "We rely on Naruto to do too much for us already. You've got a good plan, but we can handle at least part of the load ourselves. Most of us know a sizable portion of this village now. I'd bet even Temari knows more of Konoha's citizens than she does of Suna's, by this point. Also, Anko put a measure forth to have unpredictable actions as part of every other reset. What I now propose is that we take advantage of this opportunity to combine the two. Every reset, we should have some games of hunt and seek, where we select names at random from the civilian roster, pretend they are enemy shinobi, study them as if they were targets and go find them. Each one of us can pursue her own, or we can do them together. It won't take us but a few years to have a good general familiarity with everyone."

Anko also stood. "This is based on my idea, so I ought to add, we should make sure that each and every one of us knows all Konoha ninja by sight and abilities. Essentially, you should all have a complete mental set of nin-info cards on your fellow shinobi. What we don't know can and has hurt us before, and knowing who could be relied on for what makes us more flexible."

"Also, when Naruto gets to be Hokage, it could be a big help to him to know all of the shinobi under his command," Ino agreed, showing only slightly less brilliant trust in their mutual husband than Hinata.

I I I

It was still early morning, and the Last Uchiha was sleeping like a log, utterly and completely oblivious to any danger, safe in the apartment he had moved into after he'd sold the Uchiha clan compound to the village in a deal with the Hokage. Sasuke slept heavily, so confident in his 'superior' ninja skills that he never imagined anyone could possibly do him harm.

That sort of arrogance gets people killed.

Ino and Yugao appeared in his room, and the purple-haired ANBU leaned close to her comrade to whisper in her ear, while Ino was paralyzing and sedating the Uchiha. "Okay, now will you tell me what we are up to? There isn't anyone to listen in."

Ino grinned back at her. "We're going to practice up new techniques to get you your medical badge, like I promised!"

Yugao blinked down at the boy Ino had paralyzed. "So... why are we doing this with the Uchiha?"

Ino's grin was downright feral. "What we're about to do is both immoral and unethical, and we wouldn't want to hurt anyone we might actually care about. That made Sasuke the perfect test subject! Cruelty to Uchihas is not cruelty at all! I'll send one of my clones to take all of his tests for him."

"And what is it we are testing?" the lovely ANBU inquired.

"A method for manufacturing deep cover agents," Ino replied. "It was his obsession with his older brother that gave me the idea. An obsessed mind is an unhealthy one, and an unhealthy mind is a weak one. We can theoretically use a brainwashing technique to suppress that weak mind and overlay it with a personality of our choosing, thus destroying Sasuke and turning him into a new person. Our overlay won't have any skills to speak of, but that's where the second part of this comes in."

Yugao crossed her arms, staring derisively down at the test patient. "I can't possibly imagine a use for him as deep cover. His face is too well known. And if he has no memories or techniques, how is he going to disguise himself?"

"He won't!" Ino returned eagerly. "We'll do all of the disguising right here. I got this idea from our bloodline theft techniques. We simply take a genetic template and overwrite his own, just like we're doing with memories! His own genes will be completely altered into something else, and then we can explore new medical techniques for changing his appearance to match!"

The ANBU blinked. "That's actually impressive!"

"Better still, it destroys the Sharingan. And without that, nobody will ever think of Sasuke as important." Ino's face hardened. "Frankly, that's what motivated me to try this in the first place. He's led too many girls along and walked over too many people's lives in this town. His mind is full of filth, and I hate him for having once tricked me into admiring him."

"Revenge against Sasuke aside, what do we hope to accomplish with this technique?" Yugao leaned forward to ask.

The blonde girl smirked wickedly. "Manufacture of disposable deep cover agents, of course! That's the single worst duty for ninja to perform, other than the truly wicked stuff the Hokage doesn't accept as missions, like the assassination of innocents. Anyway, SOMEBODY has to do deep cover, so I was thinking 'why not make our enemies do it for us?' We take someone like Sasuke here, whom none of us care whether he lives or dies, and transform him medically into a person other villages won't recognize as a ninja! But we leave subconscious commands underlaying the surface personality to find out and relay the kind of information we want!"

The ANBU's face whitened. "Actually, that's a scary concept. What if our enemies learn that technique and use it on one of us?"

"I don't think that's possible. Not on any of us. Orochimaru already has the mental parts of this working with the hidden commands and so on. Tayuya was just revealing that to us earlier. Konoha has a dozen or so citizens who didn't even know they were spying on us. But none of those were ninja, too much mental energy makes a technique like this impossible. So civilians only. So not even Anko, who Orochimaru was able to work on for a long time, could have had this done to her. That's because none of us have exceptionally weak minds, like Sasuke does."

"Yes, but what if he improves the techniques?" Yugao raised an eyebrow.

Ino shrugged, bouncing her yellow hair. "It's something my family techniques can be used to test for. We just weren't looking, although you can be sure that's changed now! Anyway," she tossed her hair. "We'll just have to create some defenses against this sort of thing. Brainwashing techniques already exist, and are used by lots of villages, so it's not like there is no danger. That part isn't even new. No, the only aspect of this that's different is that we'll be developing medical techniques for changing a person's outward appearance, instead of relying on disguises that can be seen through. I mean, if we do this right then not even a Sharingan or Hyuga could see through the 'illusion' of the new face. Because it won't be an illusion, it'll be real flesh."

The Yamanaka girl smirked evilly. "So it won't matter that the new person we make out of Sasuke won't have any skills, because we can turn him into any old random peasant! No one will EXPECT him to have any skills! Just another wandering orphan seeking for a place to settle down. He can pitch manure in some inn someplace, and if anyone tests him for ninja powers they won't find any no matter how hard they interrogate him!"

"Because he won't have any." Yugao was nodding, then grew serious. "But what if we fail?"

Ino grinned happily. "Then we'll still have had a chance to perform horrible medical experiments on Sasuke, which counts as a win in my books."

I I I

Neji Hyuga woke up the morning of his first chunin exam test, got ready and got dressed in his typical attire of medium-sleeve light grey jacket with the high collar and black knee length shorts. The only spots of color were his blue ninja sandals and the Konoha headband he wore to cover the cursed seal on his forehead.

All functional. His long, straight black hair grown out to about mid-back was his one concession to pride.

So wrapped up was Neji in his contemplations of the upcoming chunin tests that he did not note Hinata when she passed by him on his way out of the Hyuga compound to meet his team. For one thing, she hardly acted like his Main Branch cousin in the slightest, moving and holding herself with a level of confidence that her father couldn't match. The Hyuga Clan Head had too much of a chip on his shoulder to act that confident and sure of himself.

For another, she wasn't dressed as he'd grown accustomed to Hinata being dressed, in a thick jacket and blue calf-length pants.

No, for some strange reason she was wearing a medium-sleeve light grey jacket with high collar and black knee length shorts. Although she'd retained her standard blue ninja sandals, her headband was worn around her forehead instead of around her neck.

Her blue hair was also grown long, to about her mid-back.

So, preoccupied as he was, Neji didn't recognize her. Instead, the poor genin was busy bracing himself for the standard, expected reaction when he met his team, psyching himself up against the spandex wearing duo with those ridiculous haircuts and oversize eyebrows shouting about the 'Power of YOUTH!' And in all other ways being annoying obstacles to his progress.

Instead, the Hyuga prodigy came to a shocked halt as he spotted the 'Green Beast of Konoha' and Lee, who was practically his clone.

Both of them looked up at him from where they'd been waiting, hands in the pockets of their medium-sleeve light grey jacket with high collars. He couldn't help but notice the black knee length shorts, blue ninja sandals, or that each had somehow, miraculously grown their hair out of those horrid bowl cuts into long, straight styles that reached about their mid-backs.

Gone were the green spandex, orange legwarmers and wristbands, bowl cuts and everything that made the freaks stand out so horribly. Even the stupid grins were missing, replaced by copies of his own blank, stoic expression!

Startled for a moment, Neji calmed himself, the opinion he had of the duo dropping at this obvious prank on him.

But he wouldn't give him the satisfaction!

"Hi Neji!"

Then Tenten trotted up, and gone were the Chinese silks or buns in her hair. Instead, for some strange reason she was wearing the same light grey jacket with high collar, black shorts, and hairstyle as everyone else!

Correcting his battle stance, assumed in the shock of their meeting, Neji nodded to her stiffly and tried to pretend everything was normal.

"Remember," Gai turned a stiff and stoic gaze upon his students. "Hard work is meaningless. Either you are fated to become chunin, or you are not. Bow to the whims of Fate, and accept its inevitability."

"It is pointless to fight against ones Destiny," Lee nodded soberly, with an utterly straight face.

Neji's hands were clenched into fists by the time their teacher Body Flickered away.

Glowering at his teammates, but relieved their prank was over, Neji walked away in something of an angry huff, only to get practically run over by a pink haired girl who...

... he noted was wearing another set of copies of his clothes, and her pink hair was worn long, straight, and to her mid-back.

Eye twitching, the Hyuga genius plodded on angrily to the test center, only to stop and stare as Kurenai's Team 8 crossed his path, and every member of it, from the jonin sensei on down to Kiba's dog, were all wearing identical copies of his own signature attire.

Funny, but he'd never noticed before how much Shino's coat and pants resembled his own.

Veins were popping on Neji's forehead as they walked on, only for a call out of a ramen shop to distract his attention, causing him to notice the waitress and chef were ALSO wearing medium-sleeve light grey jackets with high collar and black knee length shorts, their hair worn long and straight, down to their mid-backs.

The boy's eyebrows both started twitching as they began passing other teams from other villages, and one of those FOREIGN NINJA had the kunoichi on their team wearing practically an identical copy of his own attire!

This went beyond a joke. He couldn't imagine how anyone could get a maiden of Sound, who'd never been to Konoha before, wearing HIS CLOTHES??

The Hyuga prodigy activated his White Eyes, but couldn't detect an illusion.

Then he practically got run over by the team from Sand, and the girl made his outfit look so good he could almost forget about her two brothers, one with a puppet strapped over his back, wearing the same medium-sleeve light grey jacket with high collar and black knee length shorts as the boy carrying it, and the other wearing a great big gourd over his medium-sleeve light grey jacket with high collar and black knee length shorts.

All of their hair was long, straight, and hanging down to their mid-backs.

Neji was standing in the middle of the street, fists clenched and fuming, when Lee came up on his elbow and declared, in his OWN sober, straight-laced and dangerous monotone, "Come inside. We are not fated to miss this chunin test. It is our Destiny to be on time."

Neji almost slugged him for that.

The Hyuga prodigy stormed angrily in the front doors of the test center, and THIS TIME he noticed his cousin Hinata hanging out with her team, all of them wearing his outfits.

It was only the third time he'd seen her that morning.

Neji could have stopped and said something, but he got cut off by a tide of orange clones streaming past, all of them wearing medium-sleeve jackets with high collars and black knee length shorts, blond hair worn straight and down to their mid-backs - only the jackets this time were orange!

The orange clones met up with the pink haired girl and a boy, the Uchiha prodigy, who was thankfully NOT dressed up as a Neji-clone! Then that team all streamed inside rather quickly.

But somehow in the press, Hinata's team had also vanished, and he'd missed his opportunity to confront her.

There were chunin guarding the door, and Neji noted with a small amount of wonder that someone had also gotten THEM wearing copies of his signature attire! Storming in passed them, the boy rammed his way past other people dressed like him and shoved open the doors to the test area.

Where every single face turned up to look at him, and from the proctors on down, every single person was wearing copies of his clothes.

The head examiner nodded to him. "It's good to see you in regulation attire. Now sit! Those of you who are Destined to pass will pass. Those who are Destined to fail will fail. Be still, and contemplate Fate."

The Hyuga prodigy's head was hurting as he sat, and looked out the window, only to fall down in shock on noticing the Hokage monument had been changed so Every Single Face there was looking down at him over his own style of high collar, long hair, and headbands worn as if concealing cursed marks.

"Neji Hyuga! Fail!" the Head examiner called, hands stuffed deeply into the pockets of the medium-sleeve, light grey jacket he was wearing over his black, knee length shorts. "It is obviously not your Fate to become chunin! Take away his uniform!"

The shocked Hyuga was picked up off the floor by two chunin proctors dressed in identical clothes to his, and carried away stunned amid mutters about how obviously he was weaker than his cousin, Hinata.

Neji found himself standing outside the test center dressed in a ridiculous giant rubber purple chicken costume wondering what happened.

I I I

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Naruto was rolling around on the ground as they saw Neji wander off to go buy fruit from a vendor dressed in medium-sleeve light grey jacket with the high collar and black knee length shorts.

He had half the town filled with Shadow Clones shapeshifted into people wearing Neji's regular outfits.

"Okay, that was one of the more surreal things we've ever done," Temari admitted, hands in the pockets of her medium-sleeve light grey jacket. The long hair looked good on her, though. It really rounded out her appearance.

"How did we pull it off with the proctors, anyway? I missed that part of the meeting," Tayuya admitted with a blush.

Ino snorted. "Only because you were kissing Naruto while the rest of us were going over it. Really, couldn't you spare us a clone?"

"No, because all of her clones were making out with Naruto clones as well," Kin smirked, hands stuffed in the pockets of her own medium-sleeve light grey jacket.

"Now girls," Kurenai admonished, coming up behind them to take her hands out of her own copy of Neji's typical jacket to put them on their shoulders. She looked oddly different with straight hair. "She'd passed most of her Clan membership tests. It was only right she be allowed to celebrate."

"I'm the reason we got most of the proctors involved in this," Anko smirked, leaning up against a wall wearing her own copy of Neji's standard attire, and her hair also looked oddly different worn straight and down. "They're ninja, and used to obeying orders. So, you arrange to give them orders to dress and act a certain way, and they do."

"Yes, but how did you get those orders passed?"

"Simple," Ibiki walked up, wearing a medium-sleeve light grey jacket with the high collar and black knee length shorts. "She brought me into the resets."

I I I

Author's Notes:

You see, if I was racing towards conclusion I wouldn't have room or space for funky scenes like that one! 


	59. Chapter 59

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Fifty-Nine

by Lionheart

I I I

Sakura jumped as Kakashi put his hand on her shoulder. "You're nervous," he told her bluntly, before he tried a reassuring smile. "Don't be. I'm sure you'll do fine in the exam."

The pink haired genin couldn't resist a snort of derision. "The exam? Ha! I could pass it blindfolded, and in my sleep... no thanks to you!"

The one-eyed jonin dropped his attempts at being reassuring and looked at her more closely, assessing his student. Then he spied the gap between her and the Uchiha she was always hanging off of. Slyly, he shoved his headband up off his Sharingan eye for a moment, before replacing it, assured that this was indeed his little genin girl, and not an illusion or replacement.

Sakura balled her fists at how often her teacher did that of late. Was she really so obsessed that the moment she's not trying to be an article of the Uchiha's clothing people have to suspect she's an impostor?!

"Sakura," Kakashi began. "I've noticed that you're not trying to attract Sasuke's attention this morning. You can tell me if something is wrong."

Yes, apparently she was.

Sakura only growled by way of reply.

Her instructor blundered on, trying to be helpful in spite of his abysmal track record on relationships. His visible eye turned up in a smile. "You do so much for this team by encouraging Sasuke..."

"ENOUGH!!" Sakura threw her arms in the air in anger, getting the attention of half the chunin hopefuls through her outburst. "The Uchiha is a spoiled little pretty boy who can't love a single person other than HIMSELF! He's so totally useless in a relationship that his HAND probably gets a headache! The boy I thought I was in love with doesn't EXIST! Because the Uchiha has turned out to be a selfish, useless JERK! And I can't think of any other boy in Konoha that isn't a thousand times better suited to making a girl happy - except for YOU, sensei! You've got to be the only male as insecure about your feelings as that pooh-wielding emo bandit! And don't you think for a minute I didn't notice how disturbing it was that you fondled Naruto's ass in our genin test!!"

A circle of shock spread outward from this outburst, and Kakashi suddenly got ashamed as he felt the glares on him.

Spying orange, the pink haired girl flung herself across the courtyard, then she wrapped herself around the blond, crying, "Take me NOW! Naruto-sama!!"

A handful of resets ago, that could have landed them in interrogation about who they were and how they'd infiltrated the village, causing a reset.

This time when Kakashi dragged the pair, consisting of a resigned Naruto and a struggling Sakura, in front of Ibiki, the torture and interrogation specialist simply formed a set of seals, and without bothering to mold any chakra at all (because Kakashi's Sharingan was covered, so he wouldn't notice), declared, "There is nothing wrong with them. My guess is the girl simply clued in to the fact that the Uchiha barely qualifies as human, and that you like him only because you are scarcely any better. It is my expert opinion that both of you are damaged. The true remedy for this is therapy for you and the Uchiha."

Anko stepped out from around a corner, dressed modestly and arms folded in sober seriousness. "I concur."

"Post-Traumatic stress. It's fairly common," Tsunade appeared to declare. "Frankly, I'd call you both unfit for duty, but wouldn't want to punish the poor genin who've already had to put up with you two by failing them out of this exam early. Really, they are to be commended for having put up with you selfish pair of bastards this long. Definite signs of stable minds there, just the sort of people we want to serve as ninja - unlike you and the Uchiha, who, to put it frankly, are a wigged-out pair of self-absorbed basket cases."

Kakashi had begun looking around at these new arrivals wildly by the time Shizune (hefting Tonton in her arms) declared, "Having put up with an unstable teammate and abuse from their teacher this long argues in favor of them being strong, dependable sorts - the kind Konoha needs as leaders."

Ibiki found himself nodding. "Very well. I suppose I can allow them in as just a two-man team. It's not without precedent. You two!" he pointed at Naruto and Sakura, before slashing his arm back to point toward the test chamber. "Get in there! And good luck to both of you."

Kakashi looked down to note that Tsunade had already taken hold of his arm, and with her super-strength, he wasn't about to get away without leaving it behind. As she led him away, she invited, "Now Kakashi, tell me about your mother."

Shortly afterward, Sasuke found himself wearing a straitjacket in a padded room of Konoha's hospital and wondering what had happened.

Kakashi, in the same situation across the hall, wondered much the same.

I I I

Kin was not the only one to have seen the utility of a well-sprung carriage. Others were now learning how to grow their own, now that Naruto'd provided a blueprint in the form of the one he'd built for her. The combination of a Shadow Clone driver, wooden horses, and a few wooden soldiers to act as footmen was also a clear advantage in the realm of long-distance travel.

Frankly speaking, they could go nearly anywhere in friendly territory in a matter of nights. That was an advantage in several aspects.

For one, it meant they could skip out on the whole 'ambush on the way to Suna' time loop pattern very easily just by sending a native back to her home.

Temari arrived by carriage, clone and wooden horses, at her home village of Sand, stepped out and nodded to the gate guards before roof-hopping to her home. There, she inscribed a few seals on the floor, and used the summoning trick for calling exam instructors they'd adapted for calling Tsunade so she'd arrive in Konoha without a two day walk, called the entire Kitsune Clan there.

As the smoke cleared, revealing everyone, the Sand kunoichi looked over the costumes they'd prepared to look native in, then waved to show her village.

"Welcome to my home. C'mon, let me show you guys around!"

Baki, the Sand team's Jonin leader, stood tall and looked around behind that half veil he wore over part of his face. "I'd best call the village council together and inform them of Orochimaru's ruse."

With that, the man vanished.

"Well, it'll be good to know whether that works or not," Anko allowed, casting a glance aside at Ayame while sitting down on a low wall.

Ayame shrugged. Her father had reacted poorly to the resets. Apparently not every mind could handle the strain, and there was also the fact that running a cooking stall had a considerable amount of drudgery to it that did not go well with infinitely repeating time eliminating what little variation there was. She'd pleaded with him and pleaded with him to just close the shop for the duration of the resets, but the man had been too stubborn to, and now...

Well, she'd been forced to let her father go back to life unaware that time was resetting around them. Instead, the ramen stand waitress had found herself the girl with the best opportunity to bring Baki into the resets, as the Sand Jonin ate in her stall on the morning of the first test.

She'd learned to trust the jonin, as he was not a bad guy, merely one who was stuck in a bad situation, doing the best he knew how.

Now everybody but Gaara on the Sand team was aware of and participating in the time loops. And he couldn't, as he was another container. But, as Baki's 'sponsor' so to speak, whenever somebody had problems or issues with the Sand jonin's behavior, Ayame was somewhat responsible for him.

Being new to the resets, Baki found it difficult to bend to the Kitsune Clan's authority, and often went off on his own for things. It made Ayame wonder if they were going to be able to keep him, or if she'd be bringing another person in his place soon.

Frankly, the thought wasn't that appealing. At least they'd left Gaara back home in Konoha for this first foray to his village.

Kankuro stood and stretched, putting on a glad face under all that makeup. "Man! It's so GOOD being home!!"

Temari folded her arms and did not comment. She'd been part of the resets for so long now she barely even remembered this place. Meeting the eyes of her fellow wives, that message got conveyed nonverbally, and it was Kin who took the lead.

"Wow!" the former Sound kunoichi enthused. "You know, I've never been to this place? Do you think you'd mind showing us around your village?"

"Nah!" the puppet user waved off her concerns. "It'd be fun. C'mon, first let me show you around our home, since you'll be staying with us. Welcome to the humble Sabaku residence!"

The mansion was what might be expected of the clan seat for the leader of the village. Construction in Suna would not have been out of place in an Old West movie, although with less wood visible and more adobe. Windows were generally small, thin and high up, to let in less light and hot daytime air, with shutters that could be flung open at night to allow the heat to go out. The roofs were flat, and signs showed that people slept on top of their houses more often than inside them, to escape the heat.

Already it was looking very different from Konoha.

"Water is a commodity here," Temari began explaining, as they all started to head inside the much cooler interior of the building. "You'll find some wells, but the water table around here hides deep, and isn't strong. So much of our water comes in by wagon. We send merchant trains to other countries, and they come back having filled up great barrels and urns in places like River and Rain. Rain country is among the best, since excess water is a nuisance there so they don't even charge us for filling up!"

She made a face. "But, since they have to haul it in over dozens or hundreds of miles, water isn't cheap. So no flush toilets, and sponge baths are the common method of staying clean. Anything else wastes too much water."

Tenten patted one of her scrolls, smiling, "Luckily, we brought enough with us to probably qualify as a merchant caravan!"

"Yes," Temari sighed. "But if we use it too obviously, you'll stand out as strangers."

Kankuro was chuckling. "You'd be surprised by how many of our people take years of study in our Ninja Academy just to learn the basic survival jutsu. Sunblock and Sandstride are a big deal around here. But also, anyone who can manage enough Earth affinity to do that camping trick for distributing waste beneath the ground... well, they'll always have work around town keeping our pit toilets clean. It's not glamorous, but somebody's got to do it or it begins to smell something awful."

The puppet user pinched his nose.

Tsunade was unruffled as she responded. "With that amount of organic material spread around your towns, the soil would be quite remarkable. If the water problem could be solved, plants could grow like mad around here: good soil, lots of sunlight... water's the only problem left."

"Well, there's actually too much heat and sun for most plants to grow around here," Temari sighed. "Believe me, it's been tried. Most just burn to death in the intense heat, no matter the amount of water they're given."

"Aw! Enough of that! We're here to have fun!" Kankuro declared. "Who here wants to go out to see a puppet show?"

Seeing everyone look at him like he was odd, Temari decided to come to her brother's rescue. "It's actually more fun than you'd think. It's everything you'd get out of a live theater production, plus a ton of things living actors couldn't do - like when the villain gets stabbed, he actually gets stabbed! No amount of faking, cause they don't need to. Monsters look like monsters, and not even a ninja could tell they aren't real actors."

"Suna puppet shows are the BEST!" Kankuro declared firmly.

By mutual agreement they'd already decided to allow themselves to enjoy their first trip as a clan to Suna as a sort of vacation. There wasn't a lot left in Konoha that could interest them, other than their training or those funky games playing with peoples' heads. And while those were fun, after a fashion, they also paled before real entertainments.

They'd seen every movie that could be scrounged out of the most forgotten basements in their home village. The prospect of a real night out on the town going to a show none of them had ever seen before was more priceless than gold or jewels.

So they went. They had a great time, and enjoyed snacks they hadn't eaten before, watched a show they'd never seen before, sat next to people they didn't know as well as they knew themselves, and generally had a blast.

Of course, new sights, new smells, candy most of them had never had before, and a show none among them had seen before, while an excellent vacation away for the dull and boring sameness, did not resolve all concerns as it only posed new questions.

"I can't believe they took a gallon of water as admittance costs at the door instead of cash." Kin murmured, wide-eyed over the change.

"Don't be," Temari smiled. "You can't drink cash. And like I said, water is a commodity around here. You can run out of cash and still be alright. But you can't run out of water and be."

"There's got to be more water than what gets brought back by caravans," Kurenai mused.

"There is." Kankuro nodded. "Like Temari said, we have a few wells, and the water rations from those are like shares in a mine - valuable, and typically bought up by powerful clans or rich individuals. But also most of our D-rank missions are what we call Water Runs. Which, before anyone asks, they take a sealing scroll with a dozen empty thirty gallon barrels, go out to fill them up in a water rich country like Rain, then bring them back."

The puppet user grinned at their guests. "A dozen gallons a day for thirty days, drinking water for a family of four for a month, for anyone who can afford the price of a D-ranked mission. Not so bad, eh?"

"And not so bad for the genin teams, either," Temari mentioned. "It doesn't take long before they get the idea of taking on four or five of those missions at once, even up to a dozen, and just staying an extra day or so at the lake or river they were sent to, filling up all the barrels. As a consequence, Water Runs are actually the cheapest D-rank you can hire, since the genin will most probably be doing several of them at once."

She rolled around to face the rest of Clan Kitsune. "And before anybody asks what this teaches, I'll tell you," she volunteered with a smile. "First and most important, it gets our genin comfortable in long treks across a desert. They aren't much use to the village until they've got that skill down, so the sooner they learn it the better, and the Water Runs are excellent for teaching that, as the faster they get back the sooner they get paid. And along the way they have to learn how to pack and carry what they need on those trips, master their own water usage, and any lingering flaws in their desert survival skills or chakra techniques get ironed out in a practical environmental test."

She crossed an admonishing eye over her clanmates, some of whom were sweating. Blushing, the guilty ones began putting their lax Sunblock chakra exercise back into practice.

"It teaches more than just that," Kankuro sat them all down at an outdoor cafe in the shade, signaling a waiter with their order using half a dozen hand signs even as he went right on talking to their visitors. "Sealing and unsealing barrels into storage scrolls not only gets you comfortable using them, but it is just one more chakra exercise teaching stamina and control - the more of them you can do in a day, the more water runs you can fulfill on a single trek across the desert. One is about all a genin team can do to start with, sealing a dozen barrels full of water isn't easy as that's a large amount of mass and weight, but they learn to do more quickly."

The waiter arrived and set out glasses of drinks before departing. Temari took hers up and toasted the group. "It's not alcohol. Nobody around here drinks, as alcohol consumption increases your need for water. Common folk can't afford to, but the water waste creates enough stigma against it those who are rich enough to afford it don't bother either."

As Naruto and several of her clan sisters discovered, to their surprise, they were actually quite needy and gulped down the drinks.

Kankuro just signaled for another round, placing a paper note on the table to pay for it all. The second round came quickly. This time they noted, as they took longer drinking them and sipped instead of gulped, they were actually quite fruity and flavorful.

"Fruit juices provide energy, and cover up the mineral tang and touch of salt used to create these. You lose more than just water sweating," Kankuro remarked, finally touching his own glass.

Temari smiled her approval to him. Her brother was doing quite well as a guide, and their relationship as siblings had grown stronger ever since he'd been admitted into the resets.

Frankly, having techniques to shut down Gaara helped most of all. It meant they could relax their guard a bit and be people more than they used to. Temari and Kankuro were only just rediscovering what it meant to be family, and they liked the feelings of knowing someone else had your back in more than just combat.

"Of course, Water Runs teach more than desert survival." Temari continued to grin her approval to her brother. "Though the countries they go to are friendly, they do have to cross borders into other elemental territories. For most of our ninja that is their first glance into forests or plains, first look at any kind of plants, really. So getting them used to the idea of other territory is not a bad idea all by itself. And it's a bad teacher who doesn't stop and give them a few survival exercises on those new types of terrain the first few times they cross them, or practice stealthy crossings on later trips."

"We couldn't do any missions effectively outside our own country if we didn't," her brother agreed, before sipping more of his drink. "So really a couple hundred Water Runs gives an excellent start to a ninja: plenty of practice of basic skills, and enough money to outfit themselves decently."

"Yes, but what happens during a war?" Hana pressed, the Inuzuka heiress seeing through the surface. "You'd want your ninja doing more than shopping trip style errands to keep the town alive. And you might have lost relations to those countries you fill up at. Wouldn't an aqueduct be better?"

"It's been tried about four or five times." Kankuro scowled, putting down his glass. "It never works out right. Dang things always serve as a road pointing straight toward us. Most of our defense is armies or ninja invaders getting lost out in the desert, and that doesn't happen when they can just follow the aqueduct straight to us - and invaders always cut them anyway, so the water they ought to supply doesn't arrive and we end up relying on our emergency cisterns anyway. So eventually we just tore the dang things down."

Finishing off his drink, the puppet master left a tip and stood. "Besides, we've got emergency water supplies underground. The exact capacity is classified, as are the real entrances and access points. But they're enough to weather a good long siege. And if it comes right down to it, we've got another chakra exercise we learned from Hidden Mist. Those island dwellers learned a way to separate out drinkable water from seawater. Rather clever of them, but they needed it considering how many of those islands of theirs are too small to support fresh water springs. Anyway, if hostile relations block our access to our usual partners in the water trade, we can send our genin on Water Runs to the shoreline to fill up there."

"All of our teams have to practice that at some point in our careers," his sister stated, chin resting on folded hands before she too stood up. "About half of our genin can do that, and all our ninja higher up. Once you reach a certain point, the mission office gives you that requirement on your water runs to make certain you develop the ability so we have that talent to fall back on in an emergency. It also helps out with negotiations with our neighbors for water rights, as they know they don't have a knife to our throats, that we COULD do this just fine on seawater alone. Besides, it's a great chakra control exercise for our genin."

Kankuro smirked as he began to lead them away. "We get so much practice in our various exercises, I'd pit our chakra control and reserves against the ninja of any other village. We're literally practicing all the time, and have tons of different exercises. Although," he gave a gentle stare to the group he was leading around, "the most basic are still the most important."

Several individuals of the clan rather sheepishly restarted their Sunblock techniques, having let them slip as their attention wandered.

"Those performers did pretty well for themselves," Anko observed, trying to draw attention away from the fact their her shirt was wet with sweat.

"But they didn't wear any headbands!" Yugao objected, speaking of what she'd observed during the after-show stand up for applause the puppet masters had achieved.

"Course not!" Kankuro chuckled, glancing aside to meet her eyes. "You know about our Daimyo reducing our ninja forces. What you don't know is our bounce-back strategy for when he wises up and changes his mind!"

Temari, too, was chuckling. "All ninja forces suffer losses. It's a regular part of doing business. Some retire, some desert, and more than a few are killed in ninja battles that are just a regular part of doing missions. So we still have to have a Ninja Academy to train up replacements. And, like most villages, most of those who graduate our Academy are not accepted as genin."

"But just because a person doesn't have a ninja rank or run missions doesn't mean they ought to stop having ninja skills," Kankuro supplied with a knowing smirk, before turning back to face the course they were following. "I told you before, Sunblock and Sandstride, our most basic chakra control exercises, are almost essential to life out here. Tons of people learn them, even those who have no ambition to become ninja!"

"What that means is," Temari smirked at her home's plan, "We have tons of civilians, 'failed genin' really, who practice those so much they have better chakra reserves and control than most of your chunin! Several of them go on their own water runs, not hiring genin to do those for them."

"With more puppet masters than you might believe." Kankuro smirked, then waved their attention over to a loading dock where a number of puppets were at work unloading a wagon, while their masters stayed in the shade. "So they do all sorts of things like that. Work people hard and they sweat, and water costs money, so you have to pay them more or else they won't get enough water and they'll die. But puppets cost nothing to feed, don't overheat, and can work like mules without ever needing a sip. We teach puppet mastery in our ninja academy, and those 'failed genin' handle most of the heavy work."

"They also do puppet shows, like you saw earlier," Temari explained. "Life out here is hard enough people take all the advantages they can get."

"But that violates the basic covenant between ninja villages and their feudal lords," Shizune observed. "One of the conditions all countries share is that ninja skills are to be restricted to practicing ninja."

"With the exception of academy students," Kankuro smirked. "And we get around that by never removing these 'failed genin' from our academy rolls. They don't get listed as any class but the one they ought to have graduated in, under 'Did not make genin rank'. But we never actually remove them as students. Tons of villages allow students to continue trying to test for genin even after they've failed a time or two."

"Someone has to have talked," Anko observed cynically.

"We don't tell genin how they are getting around the law," Temari stated authoritatively. "That's a B-class secret, and not available for academy students or their genin friends to know, so they can't blow it."

"And those who can't keep their mouths shut?" the special jonin asked.

"Get declared missing ninja and executed on sight. The tales they tell are dismissed as wild stories, and at worst we have to practically shut down the town while some samurai ride through on an inspection tour - where everyone dresses in rags and pretends to be more miserable than we are. Then the fun toys come back out again after they're gone, and everyone is so grateful for what we let them have that the Daimyo would take away that the secret gets safer every time someone tries to blow it. Besides, this only goes on in Suna itself, and our climate is unfriendly enough people don't exactly come here if they can avoid it. So we're pretty isolated, and that helps keep this secret."

Temari laughed. "Most of the population of Wind Country stays along our coastline, where life is easier." Temari supplied, smiling as she looked around, remembering places from her childhood. "The climate is nice there. The heat not so bad, and this infernal wind not as much of a problem. So easily ninety percent of our people live along our coasts. Population is pretty sparse out here in the trackless desert that makes up the center of Wind country. You only have small mining towns and us ninja, for the most part, and we ninja come out here to be alone. We like the privacy."

I I I

Author's Notes:

I don't really know why, but I choked hard on this story for a while there. So, sorry if the wait has disappointed you, but the flow is back again.

I actually had a great deal of fun thinking out the specifics for how Hidden Sand would operate. They are a great country, listed among the Five Great Ninja Villages. So there has to be a reason. But the territory does not offer many resources.

People don't generally live in deserts if they've got anyplace better to be. So there was a great deal of thinking to be done on how everything would work. And then, of course, I had fun hiding secrets from their Daimyo, as I just can't see sneaky ninja living all that well under restrictions that would only cause their decline and eventually possible demise (the cut-down numbers).

So you fill the town with fully trained 'not-ninja' who could become ninja on simply handing them a headband. That is what you would DO if you were living under restrictions that could destroy you! Learn how to get around them!

Being the Kazekage's children, Temari and Kankuro would know more of the town's secrets than most of their rank would. 


	60. Chapter 60

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty

by Lionheart

I I I

"Several of our Deep Cover agents have recently been exposed," Baki told the assembled Sand council. "I have managed to safely withdraw them to Suna, as their information is priceless."

Several of the assembled ninja nodded soberly. The council of Konoha was made up in large part of civilians, and had power-grab issues. The council of Suna could not afford either problem.

The village of Hidden Sand was a military base, filled with military personnel, and had military problems. Civilians there existed only to provide services, not to pass judgment on problems outside their areas of expertise. And the Wind Lord had gone far enough toward destroying the whole town through his various edicts that they couldn't afford any petty squabbling or infighting.

Actually, the ninja council had a surprising amount of unity, in that they were all opposed to a common enemy who continually sought their destruction: The Wind Lord, daimyo of their own country.

However, life wasn't all fun and games either.

"It is against policy to retrieve agents who must then be added to our ranks as active duty shinobi," one of the senior clan heads reminded.

Baki winced. The man was head of the Mantis, and their previous Kazekage had been fool enough to make the man's own daughter a deep cover agent - then forbidden her retrieval when she was revealed. While the man was far from irrational, he HAD gotten his daughter reassigned to another country rather than killed, past bitterness would make his acceptance difficult. And many other of the clan heads had their own bitter experiences to match his.

Not for the first time, Baki counted their past Kazekage a fool. He'd made enemies he didn't need in FAR too many areas, not excepting his own family.

Fortunately, in this case that actually counted as an advantage.

"Will you make no exception for Tsunade of the Sannin?" Baki asked, getting those old ninja to gape, open-mouthed at him. He smirked. He couldn't help it. "And the information she and her party brings is that our Kazekage has been assassinated - replaced by Orochimaru, also of the Sannin."

Oh yes. Baki would have these people eating out of his hand in under an hour.

I I I

Tsunade walked on her own through the streets of Suna. They all knew the plan was to present themselves as deep cover agents being returned on the uncovering of their identities. That was really the only way to get acceptance they needed inside the village while still using their ninja abilities.

It granted them the freedom of the town, despite whatever the council said about putting them on as active duty ninja or not.

As if thinking by themselves, her feet had drawn her to the Suna Hospital. It didn't take her long to assess the place: dingy and miserable.

In her intelligence brief, Yugao had presented Konoha as being 'too tender hearted' to be good at information gathering. But that had a flip side as well. Tender hearted people want their sick or injured comrades to get well. Suna, however, had so many eager young students competing for slots on the active duty roster it was often easier to just replace ninja than to heal them.

That cost them more than just sympathy. They lost experience when older shinobi perished, and the battlefield awareness that often comes out of a close brush with death - a brush all too often accompanied by injuries. You NEARLY kill a ninja and he gets much more cautious the next time, and there was a direct proportion between how serious the wounds were and how long they remembered those lessons.

So Suna had an interesting conundrum. Between the various factors of the often hard life led in the village, their worst ninja were really very good. But out of the harsh attitudes that developed because of that hard life, their best ninja were not so hot compared to other countries. Outside of their own unique environment, that is.

On their home turf, the ninja of Sand could kill anyone.

The village had many strengths: puppet users, a preponderance of wind jutsu, and the generally excellent chakra control and store of its members. But for all their sterling qualities, medicine was not among them.

Their callousness had given them what were, in Tsunade's honest opinion, the worst medics of any of the Five Great Villages. They just didn't care enough about saving people, or spare enough attention to getting it right, to be good.

"Which, again, might tie in to and support their amount of puppet users," the Sannin spoke aloud to herself, shaking her head. "I sure wouldn't want to be wounded in this village. No wonder they prefer indirect fights."

She sternly disapproved.

I I I

"Since the village is accepting you guys 'back' mostly because I married Naruto here, I hope none of you guys mind taking on the Sabaku clan name of Gaara and Kankuro and I, just so long as you are here. It's just easier to tell people you are my family."

Naruto gave a nervous Temari a cuddle while smiling. "But Temari-chan, you ARE family!"

"Yes, I know," the wind mistress gave him a quick peck on one cheek. "But I also know you guys are used to a close association by your own clan name - Kitsune."

"Yes, but we are also ninja. Kunoichi especially ought to be used to going by a different name," Hinata also gave the older girl a hug.

"Besides, what's all this 'you guys' stuff?" Tenten came up to add herself to the growing group cuddle. "You practically outrank ME when it comes to seniority among Naruto's wives!"

"It's still a difficult question," Temari smiled back to the younger girl. They'd truly become close friends. "He got romantic with me first, but was training under you earlier, and was already quite fond of you."

"And we all know Naruto-kun!" Hinata giggled while the boy blushed.

Ayame noted, with some respect, that (even though it obviously pained her) Sakura stayed silent during this exchange, despite the fact that she could have argued to be Most Senior of all for Naruto's affections.

The other girls plainly felt she'd lost her place and been disqualified, that it was sustained (and returned) affection that formed a solid bond, so the only kind that counted.

But the pinkette had never been shy about disagreeing over anything before being admitted to the resets. Indeed, insisting on getting her way had once been her trademark, and it got noticed by more than just Ayame that the girl was not rising to the bait here.

Almost grudgingly, they admitted in their hearts that scored her points.

Sakura could have risen up and argued the point, losing what little respect they had been building for her, but the pink haired kunoichi seemed to have genuinely begun to change.

It did not escape anyone's attention that Sakura was trying terribly hard to get back in their good graces. It was not possible for anyone to be more disillusioned by someone than Sakura had been by the Uchiha in that desert fight against the forces of Sand, and that had begun to work changes on her character. She was no longer blindly supportive of the Sharingan heir, and so had to recreate herself almost totally, as blind devotion to Sasuke had made up a significant portion of her attitude and goals over most of her life, and now had to be replaced by something else.

Naturally, once that bias got stripped away there wasn't a lot left of the old Sakura for the new one to recycle. To no one's surprise, she didn't entirely eliminate the blind devotion aspect of her personality, she'd merely changed to whom it applied - and the obvious target for it was Naruto.

Sakura herself didn't think of it in those harsh and clinical terms. From her standpoint she'd gone from a loved and popular kunoichi to the very bottom of the social pecking order in nothing flat.

Any girl loves to be loved, and most adore being popular. That she'd enjoyed that situation while it lasted was no surprise to anyone. But it was Naruto who'd loved her, not Sasuke; only by the time she'd figured that out the boy who'd once loved her had spent several years getting over her already.

The Queen of England does not expect to wake up one morning and discover that she is a scullery maid who'd dreamed all the romance, wealth, position and power. Any girl on the top of her social ladder resents suddenly finding herself on the bottom.

Of course, resentment did her no good.

But it did a lot to explain why she wanted Naruto back. His love and support had been the greatest privilege of her life. Before it had enabled her to stay upbeat while surviving the Uchiha's putdowns. Now, though, she'd rather she had it for its own sake.

Naruto was a person worth loving in her eyes now.

Yes, that was terribly fickle of her, but sadly not unusual. 'One person's trash is another's treasure' and so on. Most girls don't see guys as valuable until those guys already have other girls after them. It's a bit shallow, but young people often are.

If youthful mistakes were crimes no one would survive to adulthood. Besides, girls often proudly state they have the privilege of changing their minds.

Of course, no matter how logical or reasonable, or just typical, a progression that was for a young girl's thoughts of the heart, it didn't incline Naruto any more towards liking her. That girl had hurt him consistently for years. But Sakura was a driven person and, in her own right, nearly as stubborn as Naruto, and she was determined to wear him down.

The other girls sheltered him as much as they could, because they honestly held a poor opinion of her, but the pink-haired girl still wormed her way through to do nice things for Naruto from time to time.

So the boy soon found himself faced with a choice: He could either accept the kind acts Sakura was trying to do for him, or he could pull an Uchiha and grunt and spurn them heartlessly.

Put that way, it was obvious which way he'd choose to go.

Wanting to be nothing like the brat who'd had everything and appreciated nothing, Naruto put on a kind face and accepted Sakura's offerings when he didn't have a valid excuse not to. It didn't mean he liked it, or her, or that the wounds she'd given his heart had gone away, but he was determined to be polite about things and not become a second Uchiha.

However receiving acts of kindness does gradually wash away previous hurts, and Sakura began to trust that she'd make eventual progress.

This worried the girls around Naruto, who felt they had cause for concern.

I I I

Seeing a few passerby nodding respectfully to Temari, some eyebrows got raised and Hana had to ask, "That's not just a weapon, is it? Somehow that big fan on your back is also a badge of some sort, isn't it?"

The Sand lady smiled in reply, telling her friends and family, "Wind users are respected around here more than you might think. Without us to regularly blow the streets clean of accumulated dust and grit, our village could be buried under a gradual buildup of what the natural winds blow in."

She favored the group with a confident smile, posing with her shoulders back. "That's actually one of the other really common D-ranked missions we get in Sand, to go around to all of the mining towns that are out here in the desert with us and blow the streets clean. The first few times you have to do it are REALLY hard. It's exhausting even for the best of us to learn how to move that much wind and control it, even after all of our basic chakra exercises. Too much or too fast, you blow houses down. Too little or too slow and you don't accomplish anything. Get your control wrong and you'll fling houses or swirl the dust in place, or even draw more sand into town."

She paused, smacking her lips in appreciation for the effort long since gone through. "But without us, dunes would swallow everything manmade out here in short order. So, if you want to know why we are famed for our Wind users, there's your answer. We've got to be good, and our practice makes us so."

"And the giant fan?" Ayame asked pleasantly.

"Are given only after you've been granted acknowledged mastery. They don't do a thing but augment your wind techniques, but they are useful for that." Temari still preened a bit under the attention. It had been a LONG time for her feeling an outsider looking in while at Konoha village, and it was nice to be back on home turf again, not the least because it made her important, made her the guide and instructor when for so long she'd been the one learning.

It was nice to be a student, to learn and master new things. It was also nice to be valued for one's knowledge from time to time.

Then she drooped, recalling something. Favoring her family through marriage with a somewhat sad smile, she told them, "Also, there is another reason why I like to bear this fan. It was my mother's. Not only was she a great Wind Mistress, but she made fans like this one. This was one of her favorites."

Instantly she got consumed in more hugs.

Kankuro cleared his throat once all this mushiness threatened to become unbearable. "Ahem!" Once he had their attention, he continued (liking to be the guide and instructor no less than his sister), "Clearing the streets is one thing, but not the most important or prestigious post for a Wind Mistress. The good ones graduate out of that stage early."

"Into what?" Ino asked perkily.

Shizune, who had traveled a lot, interrupted with her own smile. "Have you never wondered what makes Wind country so great?"

"Metals and the tools and weapons made from them," Ino answered instantly. "That was one of the first things Naruto told us from what he'd learned talking to these two."

"And Konoha uses lots of weapons made in Suna." Tenten agreed.

Kurenai could see where this was going and continued the test. "But the mines are all out here in the desert at the heart of Wind Country. Most of the population lives on the coast. What do they do for a living?"

The younger kunoichi all shared puzzled glances among themselves.

"Wind," Tayuya answered simply, lifting up her flute. "Hey! I learned the basics for my chakra puppet techniques from a missing ninja from Sand, who came to Sound after being recruited. I ought to know a few things about this place. I do play a wind instrument, after all. You hear a few things when you pause and listen to people who know how to ask questions. It's not like this is any big secret, most of you have just led sheltered lives in Konoha til now."

"She's right," Kurenai interrupted before this could become a fight. "When you understand economics it's truly very simple. Common people make up most of the populations of every country, and common people do not have access to sealing scrolls, special techniques, or any of the many ways we ninja have to get ourselves around."

"It all comes down to trade," Shizune took over, at last answering her own question posed at the start of this minor discussion. "Common people have only two ways of moving goods back and forth. They can carry it over land, or they can float it by water. What you can carry by hand, beast or cart is comparatively small, so that is the more expensive way to move goods. Ships can carry arbitrarily large amounts, however. Just build a bigger hull. Also a caravan of wagons and beasts of burden must rest at nights, but ships can move so long as there is wind to take them. So they go faster because they use the whole day and night to travel."

"So whenever anybody can, they move goods by ship instead of overland," Kurenai took back over this explanation. "That's why most every town that isn't a ninja village tries to place itself on a navigable lake or river, if they're not on the coast to start with."

"It's the fastest, cheapest way to move cargo," Shizune agreed. "So towns that have ready access to the sea trade are more prosperous by default."

"Ships move by wind, and guess who has enough Wind Mistresses to serve as street sweepers?" Tayuya informed the rest of the young kunoichi with a grin. "That's what they graduate to, is that right?"

Kankuro nodded, pleased by their deductive ability. "Yep! They started out as simple escort missions, just like anyone gets when they travel and are afraid of bandits, or in this case pirates. Ship captains regularly hired ninja to ride along with their boats and fight off anyone interested in stealing the cargo."

"Wherever you have trade, you have people willing to steal that trade," Hana, who'd tracked plenty of bandit camps, agreed.

"It is a source of wealth, and prosperity always draws parasites," Tsunade grumbled, still unhappy over the town's medical situation. She'd largely been staying silent as she continued contemplating that problem.

Now Temari resumed her place leading this discussion. It was her specialty, after all. "But one of those ships chased by pirates had a Wind Mistress from Suna on it, and moving dust out of villages teaches you more than anything else how to control large but gentle amounts of wind. Where most ninja would have torn apart the sails if they tried, she was able to fill up the sheets with wind without breaking them. They sped to safety. But it wasn't long before a captain asked if she could do that outside of an emergency. She could, and could get them to move three times as fast as most ships, the ones relying on natural winds, could go."

"Most winds blow about pretty chaotically," Shizune agreed. "So relying on natural wind means using whatever you can get, and you end up going not quite in the right direction most of the time. Using Wind Mistresses from Suna got around that."

"Also, you didn't have to rely on the natural strength of whatever wind you happened to find, but could afford to go full force, all of the time," Temari smiled. "In whatever direction you wanted to travel. Thus was born the C or even B class escort/propulsion missions. Move ships fast? Hire a kunoichi of Hidden Sand. So far we've been successful in keeping how to do it a secret."

"Most villages have tried propulsion using wind techniques, but end up tearing the sheets, breaking masts, or even tipping the ships over," Tayuya agreed. "So far only Suna's Wind Mistresses have had a delicate enough touch."

"Which comes from our street sweeping, but that's an A-class secret," the Suna Wind Mistress nodded. "Not that anybody envies us the practice," she finished out with a grin. "It does seem like pretty lowly labor."

"The daimyo acted quickly to restrict the practice of hiring Suna kunoichi as propulsion to his own ships, and Wind Country merchants he favors, but we've got more shipping than you'd believe possible." Kankuro explained, rolling his eyes over those acts of nobility, yet pleased by the shipping.

"It is only fair, we have more coastline than any other elemental country," Temari returned. "We have to do something to survive, and you may have noticed food doesn't grow here. We save ourselves half the cost importing it ourselves, rather than paying for third parties to carry it to us."

"Yeah, but what do you trade for it? Not everyone needs weapons, unless you deal solely with ninja villages," Tenten jokingly observed.

"Glass," Temari, Kankuro and Tayuya all answered together.

"Everybody needs windows," Temari observed.

"And what else do you think all that is good for?" Kankuro asked, pointing his thumb at the desert.

"And yes," Tsunade starting rubbing her temples at the idiocy involved, "the Wind Lord, by his stupid self-destructive policies, is killing the goose that lays golden eggs, ie restricting numbers of ninja in the village that grants him those Wind Mistresses that make his fleet go so fast that it makes so much money. But he wouldn't be the first noble to be nutso, demanding results utterly contrary to his own edicts."

"Most of them have at least a little leaning toward that," Shizune admitted with a grimace. "It comes from living sheltered in palaces most of their lives, denied any kind of contact with real people. Courtiers don't count."

I I I

Back in Konoha, a Naruto clone watched a movie he'd seen enough times to quote in his sleep. Far from being an exercise in self torture, the young man paid rapt attention to the screen.

This DVD was available in both Japanese and English.

Watching this well known movie, whose Japanese lines he could quote without effort, speaking this time in English, the young man felt that he could finally penetrate the otherwise impenetrable code that was this... Engrish.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!!"

"Oh, hi Hinata!" Naruto rubbed his eyes, then raised them admiringly to his first and still best friend. "Nice jumpsuit! Lavender really suits you!"

"Thank you, Naruto-kun!" she jumped forward to hug him, white legwarmers rising as her legs curled up behind her, giving herself totally to the embrace of her beloved blond boy.

"So he didn't require you to paste on artificial eyebrows?" the boy asked.

"Nope!" Hinata caroled. "He just wants to experiment and see if a Shadow Clone can be destroyed by sheer exercise!"

"Can it?

"Of course!" she singsonged happily, still hugging him. "I am clone number five. Now he wants to quantify how much exercise it takes! But I wanted my Naruto-break, so he gave me five minutes. How's it going?"

Taking the two-tone maiden into his lap, Naruto explained as he hugged her, "The hardest part was getting the first little bit. Now I think I've cracked it, the rest should come more easily. Do you know they read left to right?"

Blue hair went flying as she shook her head. "No. That sounds bizarre." Black really washed her out and created a combination that was hard to find colors for, so she'd lightened her shade and discovered she was a bluenette under the distinctive Hyuga black. It was a look she was much happier with.

Besides, it went quite nicely with her eye color. When the Kyubi added the Hyuga White Eyes to her 'decorations', she'd altered it enough to grant them pupils to their irises, and eliminate the bulging veins problem. Now their eyes only turned that distinctive lavender-white when activated, and Hinata had chosen to have eyes as blue as Naruto's most of the time.

It was a tribute, but also went well with her new hair.

"Yeah, it's the little things like that that have been throwing me," he nodded.

The duo cuddled for a bit before Hinata got up, pecked him on the cheek, and shouted "DYNAMIC EXIT!"

I I I

Author's Notes:

I find myself explaining background in detail so that people understand what my environment is when I start modifying it.

Saying "Huh? What?" gets in the way of people laughing or being amazed. And they don't understand the artistry of some of my manipulations until they get just why that was so hard to do. Thus, I explain beforehand.

Action doesn't work if everyone is wondering "Who is this person and what is he doing? And.. why was that important again?"

And so I get very upset that people are calling these chapters filler. Filler is inherently worthless, whereas what I am doing is describing the underpinnings of my worlds. Structural supports may not be dynamic or glamorous, but without them you're never going to build much of a high rise.

But particularly as I venture out onto ground not covered in depth by the series, I have to explain the problems or else you'll never know what they're doing as they set out to solve those.

I write what I need, no more no less. 


	61. Chapter 61

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-One

by Lionheart

I I I

Warning: Manga purists will not like at least one major thing I introduce in this chapter. But I need it, so it stays.

I I I

"This in an exceptionally large group. If we accept these back none of our academy graduates will be able to rise to genin this year."

Baki grimaced. As he'd suspected, the council had no objections to accepting the legendary medic Tsunade 'back' into the village. These were middled aged and older men and women. Health had begun to fail in degrees for most of them, due in large part to the rigors of their environment, but also parts just began to grow older and frailer. And those for whom it had not... well, they were aware that it would shortly.

Age was a demon no ninja had yet truly defeated. Except perhaps the Kitsune Clan. But Baki had yet to be totally convinced of that.

For the elderly to accept the presence of arguably the best medic the ninja countries had ever produced, when their own native ones were so pathetic (and these elders knew it), was laughably simply to guess. Of course they would! She'd be giving geriatric treatments within minutes of this meeting!

But a strong coalition of several members of the council, led by the Head of the Mantis and filled for the most part by similarly bitter men, had mounting obstinate resistance to receiving the rest of the Kitsune Clan.

Thankfully, no one could prove they WEREN'T deep cover agents. There were not any central records listing all of those working undercover. There could not be. If there was a storehouse, or a vault, or a file with that information on it, that object would be a target of ceaseless attacks, both open assaults and infiltrations, by enemy ninja. To find and crack such a file would be the ultimate espionage triumph, clearing away countless scores of agents the opposing ninja might not otherwise find.

No, for such a file to exist would be suicide for a village's spy networks.

So what records there were on deep cover agents were fragmentary and encoded. No one person knew them all, their covers and where they were to be found. Else if one person did, that person, be they clerk or Kage, would be subject to frantic efforts to kidnap and interrogate them, just the same as enemy ninja would have gone after a paper file.

So, rather than dangle out the ultimate 'Golden Mission' fruit tempting other villages to constantly try and best your security, those files were kept well dispersed from each other, with a handful of trusted people managing only a fraction each of the total undercover pie.

Even if such a person defected, or was captured, or died without passing control of those agents on, the village still lost only a portion of the network, and it was better to lose a little than to lose all.

Baki, fortunately, was one such person, controlling a handful of deep cover agents. So, because of the compartmentalized system of handling them, no one at that table could tell whether or not he was lying about Clan Kitsune being made up of deep cover agents he might or might not have control of.

No, they didn't argue about that. Instead they chose to take the political tack and threaten not to accept them based on shinobi caps set by the Wind Lord. And that was a very hard position to argue them out of.

Still, the jonin leader of the team of the former Kazekage's offspring was far from out of options. It required revealing something he was not originally inclined to, but in a set of time loops if it did not go well this time they could try again, using another approach the next.

"Perhaps you should review their files," Baki began handing out paper forms with select ninja information filled in on each of the Kitsune Clan ninja. "Note they had been subject to secret experiments while in Konoha, and each is now an active bearer of the precious Wood bloodline. No genin we could graduate this year would be the equal of any of these agents' qualifications."

Once more Baki had them eating out of his hand.

However, he noticed the Head of the Mantis Clan start visibly when the files being passed around reached him.

Interesting. The man was usually more controlled than that.

Baki was further shocked when the Mantis Head, previously his most bitter and stubborn opponent on this issue, reviewed one of those files then raised his head and said, shocking them all, "I withdraw my objections."

The coalition who'd resisted their inclusion crumbled after that.

I I I

"I'm surprised that Suna ninja didn't kill the Wind Lord and make it appear an accident," Ino flippantly remarked.

The adult kunoichi present winced.

Kin turned to Tayuya and observed, "Konoha's education system really sucks, doesn't it?"

"Probably because they were trying full-time to spike Naruto, and ended up getting the rest of us as well," Ino groused, before heaving a sigh and giving a resigned hand flap. "Ok, tell me what I missed."

"Well, for one thing, you seem to think ninja are the only military force there is," Kin quipped, folding her arms.

"Well, aren't we?" Sakura asked. Then, seeing the old and foreign kunoichi wince even harder, she tried to remedy that statement. "I mean, I know there are hired soldiers, but those are only thugs, right?"

The approval she was fishing for did not materialize.

Tsunade groaned, burying her face in her hands, while Anko got angry. "Some of those teachers at the academy are going to die. I swear they will!"

"Again?" Hana asked.

"Again!" Anko insisted hotly.

"Want some help?" Yugao offered.

Kurenai, who had been painfully rubbing her brows wondering what to say, gave it up and started lecturing, telling them what they'd missed. "Okay, I had no idea they skipped this, so I'll just start at the beginning, okay?"

"Okay!" She got nods from all the eager young kunoichi who had formed an amphitheater around her, seated on their bottoms with legs drawn up and their arms wrapped around them.

"In the first place, Government Is Force," she told them directly and up front. "We have an Emperor somewhere, but no one cares much about him because he has no ability to enforce his commands. He is a figurehead, with about as much real authority as a carving on a monument - respected, but ultimately powerless."

Seeing she had their attention, she asked, "So, with that being the case, why do feudal lords rule over countries? Shouldn't it be the strongest person? In which case, why don't the various Kages rule their countries?"

The young kunoichi from Konoha looked at each other, unable to find an answer.

"Any government that is toothless may as well not exist," the teacher prompted. "So how is it they are in change? Where do they get their authority from?"

"I'll give you a hint: it's not ninja." Kankuro stretched. "We are a mercenary force that will apply our strength to any country. We don't bother enforcing a Daimyo's authority at home. So who does?"

"They'd have to have some kind of soldiers do it," Naruto appeared with a smokeless poof, proving he'd been listening all along. "But that doesn't make sense! Those soldiers we fought at Wave were NOTHING! The least ninja could kill them in droves!"

"That's correct, Naruto," Kurenai nodded, smiling fondly on the blond. "They do have soldiers, but they aren't the sort of gutter trash you fought at Wave."

"Samurai," Ayame spoke shortly.

"That's right." Kurenai nodded. "The daimyo of each country sits at the head of his own fighting force, composed of aristocratic samurai, who rule the lands in his name, and fight for him when he calls for aid. There are about as many samurai in each country as ninja - and that is deliberate."

"Except in Wind, where the samurai are about triple, our ninja forces having been reduced," Kankuro observed coldly.

Kurenai raised a palm to forestall questions. "And before any of you ask: No. They are not any sort of cut-rate troops. In addition to administering the provinces of each country, large and small, and serving as the bureaucracy of sorts, each samurai is also a warrior, spending hours each day in honing their bodies and their minds - and those of you who recall your lessons on chakra know what that ought to do."

"It would expand their chakra capacity and control," Hinata answered. "But what do they use it for?"

"Chakra weapons and armor," Tayuya interrupted bluntly.

"I'm not familiar with that." Naruto shook his head, leading most of the younger girls with him.

This got Anko even more steamed, and she started muttering about doing terrible things to those academy instructors.

Kurenai was silently vowing to help. "Chakra armor creates a barrier, a field if you will, around the wearer that utterly negates any foreign chakra that enters. It also provides strong protection against blows. In practical terms, that makes them immune to illusions, elemental powers, and most other ninja techniques. They can afford to simply ignore them. A ball of fire would stop and fizzle just short of them, lighting vanish into the air rather than touch them, even walls of earth raised by chakra crumble at their approach."

"Why don't we use that stuff?" Ino broke in quickly.

"Because it diverts the wearer's chakra to do it," Shizune answered. "You could put on a set, assuming you could obtain one, but you couldn't use any of the powers it would stop: no illusions, elemental abilities, or most ninja techniques. Any chakra you manifest outside your own body it would take and use for itself, powering that shield that protects you."

"That would still leave you with armed and unarmed combat techniques," Hinata observed.

"And guess what those samurai train exclusively in?" Yugao asked. "They have no need for our 'flashy ninja tricks' so they spend all their time focused on those things that CAN work for them - armed and unarmed styles. And their weapons..." she shook her head in remorse.

"Chakra swords can operate within and even penetrate the chakra shields created by the chakra armor. It's a contest of both wills and skill," Kurenai told them.

"But their chakra blades will carve through anything less," Yugao added. "And, just like it is illegal for anyone but ninja to use ninja skills, owning any of the special equipment that makes samurai what they are is also prohibited to anyone but samurai."

"There are rumors that... Snow country, I think, has a daimyo lax enough to not care about that standard, and that he's let some ninja from his village there obtain and practice experimenting on samurai equipment. I hear they are trying to modify it so it does not prohibit use of ninja skills, but actually enhances them." Tayuya offered with a shrug. "For what it's worth."

"I've heard that rumor too." Yugao nodded. "But if that's so, the daimyo there must be singularly stupid. That's the one advantage samurai have over us ninja, and letting us play around with their gear could lead to a situation where shinobi could overthrow samurai rule."

"Be that as it may," Kurenai diverted this conversation so it was back on track. "Mature samurai are profoundly skilled at armed and unarmed combat, immune to most if not all of our special ninja techniques, have powerful chakra and..." she sighed. "Their own techniques for using it. While I said that all external chakra manifested gets absorbed, and that is true, samurai are adept at many internal uses for chakra - chiefly enhancing their bodies so they can run faster, strike more quickly, become stronger, and otherwise perform beyond the normal human limits of their bodies."

"Samurai rule because they are POWERFUL!" Hana informed them, folding her arms as she leaned back against a wall. "In far gone days we shinobi could sneak in and assassinate them while they were asleep or otherwise at rest and not wearing their armor. But then they invented chakra fortresses, and those days are past. The castles they live in now have the same properties as their armor - absorbing all external chakra manifested in or near them to fuel a shield that protects them from harm. Internal chakra and samurai gear excepted, of course. So they have all their toys to defend themselves with at home, but ours get shut down if we go visiting."

"We can run fast and strike fast, but samurai can run and strike faster. For most of us the internal arts are a sideline, if we know them at all. But for a samurai, they are their entire focus. So on average they are much better at them than we are." Shizune interjected.

"Gai and Lee might be an exception," Hana smirked.

"Don't count on it." Tsunade observed coldly. "Ninja are taught to use their chakra a certain way, and that bleeds over despite our intentions. Even my strength gets shut down inside those palaces. All sorts of stuff you'd think is internal isn't, because of the way ninja get taught to use their energies. Virtually all our training is on pushing chakra out of our bodies."

"Still, it seems there ought to be some way we could kill them," Ino mused.

"Hmph, if we need to kill a samurai, we have to find him away from home, preferably alone, and exhaust him." Temari grunted, seating herself on a bench with more force than necessary. Looking at the rest, she said, "The armor they use isn't free. They do have to feed chakra to it to keep those shields up. It's like any technique in that. Why else do you think they spend so much time enhancing their chakra reserves? They do need the energy."

"So... couldn't we lay siege, or something?" Naruto offered the idea.

Anko shook her head, arms also folded as she leaned across from Hana. "If it were just the samurai, maybe. But there are actually three separate military forces in each country completely independent of each other, but ultimately all of them report to the daimyo."

"Ninja and now samurai you know of," Kurenai explained. "The last are the monks."

"Monks?" several young voices echoed together.

Yugao was nodding. "There are several monasteries in each country. Before you ask, we've tried infiltrating them several times, and no, it doesn't work. They are better than the Yamanaka about detecting moles or sleeper agents. Also, they've got some way of enforcing binding oaths on their members."

"Why the secrecy?" Hinata blinked curiously.

"Because the way they control the elements makes what we ninja do look sick!" Anko declared, dropping her arms to stand tall. "They don't use hand seals, nor do they rely on specific techniques! A monk who has studied fire can control that like Gaara does his sand!"

"The Country of Fire is not actually named for anything to do with Konoha," Shizune softly declared. "But for the excellent quality of the Fire Monks who study there."

"The Country of Lightning the same," Hana sighed over her folded arms. "Ninja do not revolt against their lords because those lords could call down monks out of the monasteries, as well as their own samurai against us, and we could not survive. We'd be forced to flee - again."

"Does anyone know how those monks do their screening?" Hinata asked.

"No. Only that it seems perfect," Yugao replied. "And before you talk about Kyubi, or any of the Tailed Beasts, there are more forces at work in this world than just demons. Some monasteries are rumored to control dragons."

"Feudal lords ARE Lords because of the balance of militaries they control." Anko summed up. "If any one of the three forces get out of line, they can use the other two to correct that. The monks are just as much into armed and unarmed combat and internal body enhancement training as the samurai, so can pose a threat to them even in their homes."

"But of the three, it is the samurai who are toughest to beat," Yugao agreed. "And that is why they are in charge."

I I I

Clan Kitsune was on vacation.

That meant many things, but mostly it meant mental stimulation, going out and finding new things without laying down requirements for doing anything right this time. That was the only way they had to relax anymore, and they were determined to enjoy it. Besides, so far it had been fun.

Part of what that meant of course was to go out and discover stuff, and since not everyone held the same interests in the same priority, occasionally that meant going off on your own.

They actually did a fair bit of that, as stuff you discovered while you were out by yourself could be discussed with those who hadn't seen it and lead to all new conversations, another form of all-too-rare treat for them.

So Tenten was off to look into some of those smithies she'd been hearing about, when she ran into a large man in green armor blocking her path.

"You have returned," the man told her in sober tones.

Tenten was confused, not sensing any hostility or threat from the man. Then she recalled the cover story they were using - they were all supposed to be deep cover agents who'd been uncovered and retrieved. So she shot him a smile, "Yup! Baki ought to have told the council by now, right?"

The man cocked his head at her. "You do not remember me?"

Now Tenten was stumped, staring at him in confusion. "No, sorry. I haven't any idea what you're talking about."

The man casually unfolded his arms and waved a one-handed seal before her face. "Remember."

I I I

"So, if we're supposed to be deep cover agents, won't we stand out? I mean, part of the reason we are here is that most of us know nothing about this town. That ought to trip us up right away. Wouldn't it?"

Kurenai smiled fondly at Hinata's objections, and ruffled the girl's hair. "No, not actually."

"But why?" Ino asked. The same question had been troubling her.

This time it was Anko who smirked and took over the conversation. "Because there are two great dangers to undercover assignments. The first great one is the one everyone fears: being uncovered as a foreign agent. But we go to such extreme lengths to avoid that, layering our agents in false personalities and getting them to delve deeply into their roles to avoid the guys searching for agents like them, that we actual create the second big one: forgetting who you really are, who you work for, and what your job actually is."

Yugao nodded. "That's right. People live for a fairly long time, but we have to replace field agents almost constantly. Do you know why? It's because most of those who don't get caught submerge their true loyalties so deeply they forget their original roles and lives. You can't get information out of such a person, so they have to be replaced."

"It's called 'going native' and it happens to most agents who don't get caught early on," Anko sighed, shaking her head sadly. "A human mind is not built to deceive itself for long. Any cover deep enough to get you clear of counter-intel types will slowly overcome the reality you are trying to hide, until the lie IS your reality!"

"The number of people who can sustain them both and balance the razor's edge between what they present to others as real, and what truly is real, is surprisingly few... and may itself be a mental disorder," Shizune admitted.

"So even successful spies have to be replaced all the time," Anko admitted.

Shizune was pondering. "The problem could be avoided if we could withdraw our agents from their cover assignments regularly to reinforce the original's personality, skills and goals. But that would take at least a month out of every year, and you can tell that every ninja village's counter-intelligence people would be looking for those patterns."

"After that," the first apprentice to the legendary medic shrugged. "Some of the sleeper or deep cover agents who 'go native' could be helped and their memories restored if they could be reached. But that is the hard part."

Anko leaned back and crossed her arms behind her head, chewing on a dango stick. "Also, you can imagine the nightmare of trying to convince a person to go back to a life she doesn't want, just as you've finished correcting all the damage it did her psyche."

"It would be cruel," Shizune agreed.

"Heartless, more like." Hana snorted.

Yugao sighed and looked out across the skyline. "Intelligence is one of those fields that takes a regular flow of people and chews them up into wasted shells, either caught and destroyed or lost to their delusions forever. But the villages keep doing it, because we have to. Konoha doesn't do much of it compared to most others, and I can't say I mind that policy. But I also believe I've mentioned that we replace the costs of running a successful intelligence network with the equally terrible costs of getting blindsided by events."

"And if anyone knew of a way to fix it, we wouldn't have this problem," Ino summarized, jumping ahead of her teachers to say it.

"Sadly, this is so," Kurenai agreed.

"Hi guys."

The group looked up as Tenten rejoined them. She seemed rather subdued as she turned a pale face on them in the courtyard of the Sabaku home they'd been using for this discussion.

"Is something the matter?" Hinata scooted close, and, sensing the other girl needed comfort, hugged her.

Tenten nodded, then started sobbing. "Yeah! There is. It turns out my name is NOT Tenten! I am actually Orange Blossom of the Mantis! I'm a clan heiress just like Hinata-chan here!" Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she admitted, "I have a mother! And a Father! I even have siblings! A couple of younger brothers and sisters who were raised hearing stories about me! I got my name from my mother's favorite flower, a tree that grows in our clan's backyard, kept alive for her at great expense because my father loves her so much! They just took me to look at it!!" The girl collapsed in Hinata's arms and began sobbing.

That bombshell just kind of took everyone by surprise.

Ino rushed forward to perform a Mind Body Switch, checking out the other girl's mind. When she emerged, she shook herself, and gazed at her sobbing friend kindly.

"But it can't be. We checked, right?" Yugao asked, seeing Hinata was too busy comforting the other girl to mention it.

Ino drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, on the verge of sympathetic tears herself. Quickly, she shook her head. "Not well enough, as it turns out. I would've caught anything she was conscious of, but Tenten had forgotten it all herself, and it was so deeply buried in the background clutter that I never noticed. Poor girl."

"A deep cover agent who got lost?" Kin wondered aloud, looking to the adults.

Yugao tensed, but Anko subtly waved her down, shaking her head. Seeing the ANBU swordmistress still holding herself ready, the special jonin scooted over to grab her and whisper in her ear. "Now you just think a minute. Here we have a girl whose been with us for years ADMITTING to us she had a past she never knew of. That's NOT the action of someone more loyal to another than to us! Poor girl is just as shocked by the revelation as we are, and is more concerned we'll reject her based on this than we are she'll betray us."

On Yugao's other side, Tsunade nodded soberly, even as Shizune added herself to the group hug around Tenten. "And what could she do? We are in a set of time loops. All of us are constrained by the fact that NONE of us can form, or maintain, meaningful relationships with people who aren't aware that time keeps getting reset around us."

"Besides," Anko murmured softly to avoid her voice carrying over to any of the kids. "Ino was just inside her head, and I can assure you I trained that little brat better than to NOT check for illusions or compulsions or junk like that after a revelation like this. Ino gave no warning, so she's clean."

"None of her love for Naruto, or for us, is feigned," Hana added to this covert little huddled discussion among the adults, scratching her nose to subtly indicate that extremely keen sense of hers. "All her loyalty is still to us. She's just afraid she'll lose us, that we'll reject her."

"Which we have no reason to," Tsunade insisted, acting as she rarely did as the chief among Naruto's wives.

"We're not GOING to!" Naruto appeared behind them to add his own hot insistence to this affair.

The appearance of Naruto served as a catalyst. Once reassured that he still loved her just as much as he ever did, the dam burst and Tenten, or Orange Blossom if you prefer, wanted to tell them all about the life she'd forgotten.

Sharing was part of healing, and once reassured of their love for her and the relationships they had with her staying intact, she did so with gusto.

"Would you believe I was a prodigy?" the girl asked them, clearing some of the tears out of her eyes and starting to smile. "I graduated the Suna Ninja Academy at the age of five, and was an acknowledged Wind Mistress and chunin at six! My family were so proud of me! I'd mastered all of our clan techniques by then, and carried a fan my mother made for me. It's lovely. I wish I could show it to you, but my clone is still getting reintroduced to them, and it's with them. I could show you later. But anyway, my dad objected to one of the the Kazakage's policies, killing Gaara actually, and he thought to humble us by sentencing me to deep cover."

Tenten, still wiping tears out of her eyes, fighting urges to laugh or chuckle or cry some more, she didn't know what, took a deep breath and plunged on, "They sent me to Hidden Rock first, but I got found out. Dad was able to extract me anyway, and after the Kazekage refused to let me back I got reassigned to Konoha. One anonymous orphanage fire later, and a whole load of Kyubi orphans got reassigned to other orphanages while the first one got rebuilt - and I was just included among them!"

Hinata was nodding. "I can see how that could be effective. Most of the records would've been lost, and with the children dispersed they wouldn't all recognize each other."

Tenten was nodding. "And I was so determined not to get caught this time that I submerged all of my skills so deeply I forgot I even HAD them! Then I went and forgot my family, and..."

Seeing the girl was threatening to break down into sobs again, Naruto picked her up and shouted gladly. "Hey! This means I finally get IN-LAWS out of you! C'mon everybody! Let's go meet them!"

"Hurray!!" the group cheered. His enthusiasm was catching.

"You have two families now," Hinata reassured the girl.

"Not unusual when a girl gets married," Anko allowed, deliberately casual.

"I hope I can like them as much as we love you," Kin added her support.

Tenten was beaming at all this acceptance.

"Just remember," Tsunade reassured Yugao as the two followed along, trailing just a touch behind the rest of the group and speaking softly. "What the usual situation would be here is a confused former agent having to decide who she is more loyal to, in other words which relationship matters the most to her, and we are in a set of time loops. Remember what that does."

And Yugao did, and it reassured her tremendously. Her budding relationship with a boy outside the loops could not survive her progressing as a ninja and a person while he did not.

In a choice between a relationship that grew and flourished and which was already well established, versus a tentative and new one that could not change or grow, Tenten would inevitably select the growing one. Therefore, she was safe, and could be trusted.

On reaching that conclusion, the ANBU's fears relaxed concerning her.

I I I

Author's Notes:

What? So you thought I couldn't pull off any more surprises?

Yes, Tenten is actually a deep cover agent from Sand who submerged her old skills so completely she 'went native' and eventually forgot her own past completely. No, she has not been reporting back during that time. And yes, the Head of Suna's Clan Mantis is actually her father.

Bet none of ya saw THAT coming! At least before this chapter anyway. And Tsunade is right about where her loyalties will inevitably lie, with the family she made rather than the one she'd forgotten.

Oh, and while I probably could've looked up what orange blossom is in Japanese, I figured I would probably get it wrong anyway, wrong tense for a name, or wind up making it a boy's instead of a girls name if I did find out how to do a name conversion, or something like that, and that by next chapter I'd have dozens of people correcting me anyway. I thought I'd just skip that part and if anyone wants to volunteer the name conversion, go ahead and do so.

At least now the non-Japanese speakers will know what it means when or if I eventually use that for her new name.

I could've called her Cherry Blossom, but Sakura was already taken.

As for the samurai... Bakamoto writes a ninja series where ninja are the end-all be-all of the show. But he bases much of it on feudal Japan, where the samurai are in charge, and there's just no reason that could be the way it is under the rules as he provides them. So I altered those rules, and gave the samurai a way that explains why they WOULD BE in charge!

And the monks are there because, historically, they were, albeit altered just a touch to stay in keeping with the other military forces shown. With a bit, I'll admit, taken from The Last Airbender. 


	62. Chapter 62

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Two

by Lionheart

I I I

First, I would like to blow a raspberry to Hawk's Fanfiction Forum. For, if they'd had their way, this story never would've completed it's first chapter. And they continue to sneer at it to this day.

I ask only that someday the universe return that karma to their own heads.

I I I

Naruto stood grinning out in the desert.

A clone popped. That was the signal. A thousand Narutos arranged in a huge circle all cried out together, "Rose Rampart!!"

A huge wall began to rise between the clones from their circle, curling inward to rise as a dome. However, the wall cracked as it was rising, dropping huge, multi-ton blocks of stone while collapsing in on itself. Splashing rubble popped many of the clones that had been forming it.

As dust plumed skyward, the real Naruto, who was up on a ridge watching the whole affair, sighed and palmed his forehead.

"Third failure so far," a nearby clone bearing a clipboard and with a pencil shoved behind his ear remarked unnecessarily. Then, just to keep talking as it knew the original already had this information, it said, "Sand keeps shifting under the base. Apparently the new supports you designed aren't going to compensate enough."

The real Naruto sighed, nodding. But talking to himself did help to review the data and get new ideas, which was why he still did it. Suddenly galvanized, he shot straight up and ordered, "Send down clones as deep as they can dive on Underground Move jutsu! See how deep this sand goes. If we can't build on sand, we may have to use bedrock for our foundation!"

"Right!" the clone formed a handseal and another two thousand Narutos went about clearing away rubble and following those newest orders.

The clone with the clipboard starting doing calculations with his pencil. "As big as this will be we still won't be able to keep most of the dome from being underground. This sand is like water. No matter how deep a hole we dig, it will just fill it up again. What with the way wind blows in this country, the sands shift constantly, and according to our first reports, it is almost as deep as we'd planned for this dome to be tall. It would take major engineering to make it any taller, and then it would have to hold up not only its own weight, but all of the sand pressed up against it."

"Well the point of this whole experiment was to see if we could build a dome out of polarized rock over Suna to cut down incoming sunlight!" the real boy proclaimed. "Being partly underground might just help us do that! Clear a hole! Let's give this new plan a try."

"Yes, sir," the clone replied. "Shovels?"

The real Naruto scowled. "Alright. Let's go seek out Temari and see if she can't teach us those street sweeping exercises she's got. You're right, there's no practical way to clear off enough bedrock to work on otherwise."

I I I

"You want what?" Tsunade repeated dumbly.

Naruto's other wives would be giggling madly, it wasn't often (especially in these resets) where you could catch the Legendary Slug Sannin by surprise, if they weren't all staring dumbly themselves.

"It would be our honor," the Sand councilman repeated, standing at the head of the entire Suna ninja council, "to receive you as our Kazekage." Seeing her continue to stare at him blankly, he stumbled, "That is, if you will accept the post."

Once more he offered her the conical hat with the symbol for Wind on it.

Baki coughed into his fist. "As the most powerful shinobi currently active in the ranks of Hidden Sand, due to your recent return from your deep cover post, you are of course first choice for the position."

"And it was you and your undercover team who discovered our last Kazekage was assassinated," a third councilman stated. "We feel it only right that you, arguably the person most suited to defending the position of Kazekage from another attempt by your old teammate to infiltrate it, should have the job."

"What's the salary of this position?" Shizune shoved forward to ask. Dark clouds hung around her teacher as she did so. The Sannin had long since come to accept the more or less permanent freedom from her debts as one of the best parts of these resets.

But apparently her apprentice still kept them in mind.

"Well, Sand is not a rich village," the chief councilman hedged. "But perhaps you would find secrets from the village's jutsu library some compensation?"

"She ACCEPTS!" Naruto appeared to shout in unison with all his Angels.

"Good," Baki and the Sand council beamed as Naruto put the hat on his wife's unresisting, but still unhappy head.

"As my first order," the Sannin growled, grabbing Naruto by the throat. "I appoint Naruto here Chief Geriatric Practitioner of Hidden Sand."

There came much giggling from the wives as Naruto blanched.

"And the rest of these girls his subordinates," Tsunade finished coldly. "I've trained them all very well. So bring out all your old people. They're going to give them checkups - right now!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!" the cries of anguished souls rang out.

I I I

"That was cruel and unusual punishment," Temari groaned, burying her face in the water they'd brought along for a personal hot spring.

"W..w..wrinkled... b.. bodies..!" Naruto shivered. Nor was he alone in his grimacing and shivering, the entire clan had been hip deep in ugly old people all afternoon. It was not a happy sight.

"So I was fascinated by that case you had with the osteoporosis patient who took well to the treatments," Ino told Shizune brightly.

The Sannin's First Apprentice smiled. "Yes, degenerative conditions like that one are the hardest to heal, and you see them all the time in the elderly. I wish it were as simply to fix as a kunai injury, but sometimes all you can do is heal the breaks and smooth over past damage and hope that gives it enough strength not to break as easily the next time."

"You can't just strengthen or replace the bones?" Tayuya asked, curious.

"Good heavens, no!" Shizune chuckled throatily. "Do you know how much I would give to be able to do that for patients? We can patch them together with medical chakra, but you can't draw on resources that don't exist! Cells replace and divide naturally, so it isn't all that hard to encourage them to grow, but if their bones are failing they often don't have the necessary bits to rebuild them. The body sees the bones as its emergency calcium storage and takes some out when it needs to, but putting it back in is the hard part. As you grow older it gets harder to absorb nutrients like that, so they just aren't floating around in the bloodstream to add back in, even if you could. So it's just part of growing old, your bones and body get frailer."

"Hmm," Tayuya wondered. "I know a guy in Sound who can grow his bones out and use them as armor or weapons. Are you telling me it's not a technique?"

"Has to be a bloodline," Shizune told her. "Those break all sorts of rules. But as far as medical techniques go, that's out. It's not even an option."

Finished scrubbing up, the redhaired jonin from Sound got up and headed to the pool for a soak. "Well, I think I've found my medical project then. I'll make it a point to study that guy. Perhaps I can learn something."

"It would do a lot to aid the elderly." Shizune joined her. "All sorts of things wear out, skin, organs, and so on, but bones are one of the most crucial. You could always keep muscles fit if you weren't concerned about breaking your bones doing it. Well, there's also heart failure and things, but we can restart those." Shizune mused, then shrugged happily. "No, if there was a way to solve the bone problem, countless older shinobi would not be so helpless."

"It's something to look into then," Tayuya pulled out her flute and played a few notes, creating a chakra puppet that began to rub her down. Where her old ones were all deformed and demonic looking, hoping to inspire terror (or at least some revulsion) in combat, lately she had taken to experimenting.

This one was tall, blue skinned, and looked like a female genie - much more comfortable to have around, and somehow appropriate as a servant in the relaxed and sumptuous setting of their baths.

"So, you make it sound like ninja don't have any advantages at all." Tenten observed to Kurenai among the younger wives as they were all washing up after a marathon medical session she was trying hard not to remember, giving check ups and examinations to every grey hair in Sand, interrupting the talk about bones that kept reminding her of it. "Dealing with Samurai, I mean."

"Not at all!" Hana quipped on her behalf, also sudsing up. "Ninja are tricksy. Pushing chakra out of our bodies allows us to do things no samurai or monk could attempt. None of them could walk on walls, and only water monks could walk on water. Only ninja can disguise ourselves or vanish in a puff of smoke to reappear elsewhere, and no samurai or monk can make clones or control puppets. Illusions are also our specialty, and while those don't fool armored samurai they can be used to deceive monks - who, being unarmored, can also be taken down by a handful of thrown senbon or kunai if done correctly."

Eager for the subject change, Anko and Kurenai also joined in, with the former teacher taking the lead. "We also make heavy use of storage scrolls, when neither other branch does. Monks are actually quite good at seals, but don't go anywhere and have taken vows of poverty, so moving lots of things about is not one of their priorities. And while samurai might be interested, they are too busy with other things. You can't be good at everything, and they have administrative duties to consider. So you won't find many among them who have any skill at seals. They rely on monks and ninja for that."

As Kurenai rinsed off, she tossed an 'are you paying attention' glare to the young girls. "As a consequence, neither of the other militaries are as adept at summons as we are. They have a few, but not many. Samurai are too ignorant of the sealing art, and monks don't get enough practice with the small stuff or expressed chakra, so must do it in groups if they do it at all."

Anko was grinning privately now as she shampooed her hair. "Also, we have a, permit or license so to speak, to behave in ways others find dishonorable, like in the use of poisons. We find nothing wrong with that, but neither other military would use any. The same goes for traps. Tricking a samurai to rush after you, break through a thin ground cover and fall into a deep pit you then collapse on him is one of the best ways of dealing with them - but they think that sort of stuff is terribly unfair."

"Just like making them chase puppets or clones across the countryside," Kin joined this conversation long enough to snigger. "A simple clone, whether an illusionary one or made out of some material, is its own chakra construct anchored to itself. So it can't be dispelled the way a hell viewing technique could, and it is one of the few illusions a samurai's chakra armor doesn't protect them from. Not until they touch and dispel it, anyway."

"One of the reasons it gets taught to everyone as a basic technique," Anko agreed. "The Basic Three are all like that. Transformation anchors its illusion to your chakra, not the samurai's, so again they aren't protected unless they actually touch you. And they can't kill you if they can't find you, which annoys them to no end."

She smiled, then waved a soapy finger at the younger kunoichi. "No one is as flexible as a ninja, except another ninja. We acknowledge no rules governing our behavior except a cavalier 'whatever works' attitude and loyalty to our village. Unlike monks, we'll often use techniques from whatever elements we can get our hands on, and no one else uses any stealth; even if I must admit we've gotten fairly lax in that ourselves lately. But the next time a real war crops up, you'd better believe we'll pick that up again in short order and once again be the ghosts of the battlefield. Also, during real war samurai must be campaigning in the field, which means they don't all get to sleep in those wonderful chakra-stealing stone castles of theirs, which puts us back in the business of killing them in their sleep!"

Hana agreed, sinking down into the tub with the rest of the women already there. "Ninja are the 'go anywhere, do anything' force. Both of the others are too uptight to do anything about, say, a rice shortage or stolen necklace. The samurai will tell a merchant to solve the rice problem, and monks don't care about anything outside their own monastery walls. Monks care mostly about the heavens and things not of this world, while samurai govern the day to day living. That leaves us with everything else, all the in between stuff."

"Like pushing ships," Temari added, relaxing into the soak and glad for the subject change from the earlier medical one. "Samurai can't, and monks do not care about money and wouldn't want to cheapen themselves to such a 'mercenary' role anyway. They want to be left alone to deal with heavenly things, not be shackled to a boat to run cargo."

Kurenai was nodding. "One of our strengths as ninja is our willingness to do practically anything. No monk would cheapen himself to become a glorified mule pushing ships about to ferry people back and forth on a lord's beck and call. Just as no samurai would permit himself to be harnessed like an ox to plow fields. He may be that strong, but he'd rather starve."

"Monks and samurai do not hire themselves out to perform missions. Ninja do." Hana agreed. "Often we are the only recourse of the common folk who want something done they are unable to do themselves. And not just for the common folk; our Traveling Ten, the camping techniques you all know? Well, samurai hire us as camp followers during war just to keep their armies more mobile and flexible by lighting all their campfires for them, washing all their pots, and recharging batteries for any tech they use."

"Not glamorous," Kurenai joined them in the soak, "but the best place to put newly minted genin who don't know anything better and are still too raw to risk in combat. I was glad to do it in the last real war. They were graduating us so fast we were still too young to have any real muscles. Better to wash dishes and live than face someone four times your strength, size and speed, and who has ten times your experience, and die."

"You grew up into an illusion mistress because you later had to fight and had not developed the muscles, right?" Hinata asked softly, and Kurenai nodded.

"Another reason destructive jutsu are popular," Anko added. "In most wars we don't have to fight samurai, they'll take care of themselves. Samurai are all too eager to slaughter enemy samurai in the great big wars of theirs. Our job is to handle the enemy ninja that might want to poison a samurai army's food supplies, blow up a bridge they may be crossing, or slip a pretty kunoichi between a commander's sheets to stab him during a romantic moment - Or, worse still, stay with him smiling sweetly while every night copying all of his organization and planning documents to send to her own side."

"Scouting is an essential function in all combat." Hana sighed, stretching as she enjoyed the hot pool. "If you don't scout, you don't learn the terrain or the enemy's strength and disposition. In short, you lose. And you can scout in two general ways: send out a lot of ninja to hopefully slip past the enemy ninja on guard to see the enemy camp and count his numbers, or use spies to copy that information out of their own tables of organization. A kunoichi in a commander's bed is one of the most successful scouts ever invented."

"But coming back to the force comparisons in event of a conflict," Tayuya lectured, coming in to this conversation herself. "Other advantages of ninja are, due to our summoning expertise, we own and use more technology than either other force does. We carefully cultivate our special bloodlines, which the celibate monks can't, and samurai are too 'noble' to marry a peasant girl just because she can manifest ice. Also none of the others are as good at medicine, because that requires expressed chakra and they don't have our skill in that; although some monks do try, and a couple get almost as good."

Anko was grinning as she tilted back a cup. "Also, one of our trademarks is to vanish before a deadly blow only to get replaced by a block of wood - which they hate, and neither of the other forces do." She smirked nastily, "They always get so angry when we do it fighting them, like we are cheating them out of their just rewards right when they've earned a kill on us. That might even be true by their standards, but we are ninja - whatever works, we'll do."

Temari groaned as Tayuya's genie masseuse went to work on her. Not as good as Naruto, but then nothing was. "And the special defenses of Hidden Sand do apply. They cannot see through sandstorms, like we do. Nor can they prevent the grit from touching them, again as we do. Monks and samurai don't get our Sunblock or Sandstride techniques so get to bake out there slogging through hip deep dunes... Also, indirect damage from ninjutsu can still happen. So wind jutsu can make a sandstorm, blowing up dust and grit that destroys samurai, choking and burying them. Suna is actually the village best defended against their own government, which just may be a factor in why our daimyo doesn't trust us at all." She looked up to see their faces. "Doesn't help us a bit if we get declared 'in rebellion' and the Wind Monks get called down against us, but it does cut down on official inspections."

Hana gave a throaty chuckle. "And, of course, everyone has always relied on us as spies. Even Konoha, who takes last place in the intelligence contests between major villages, gives their daimyo regular reports - and HE doesn't know those reports aren't top rate!"

Anko chuckled throatily, leaning back and at rest. "Not even the top villages give their best information to their daimyos. Stupid nobles have the worst senses of what to blurt out in public gatherings. A careless comment meant as a show of 'look what I could do to you if I wanted to' to cow another lord into submission has often led to the deaths of entire intelligence cells. So the ones with the really good intel don't share it, especially not with their lords. So it's not like the Fire Lord knows he is missing anything. His competitors are no better off than he is with regards to the intel reports they get."

Anko turned to face Naruto, who's shivering in revulsion had subsided due to the distracting topic of ninja combat and tactics.

Good. It was serving its purpose then.

"Hey kid, do you know that lecture I gave you long ago about how tools are the most under-utilized and appreciated ninja skill? Well, here's another use for them: Tools work just as well on samurai as they do on anyone else. You can wrap them up with wire, assuming you do it so their swords don't cut it. You can poison them, use gas grenades to blind or choke them, trick them into fighting your puppets, or do anything you'd normally do to someone with a tool. Our fancy chakra tricks don't hurt them, but tools work just fine."

"Except for explosive tags," Kurenai reminded. "The blast is chakra-based, so it doesn't hurt them."

"Ok," Anko admitted, leaning back and getting comfortable. "Except for them - unless you get tricky with them." She grinned wickedly. "Because they know they are immune to the tags, samurai often charge right into them, or ignore the explosions altogether. So, if you place a bunch of kunai in front of a tag before it goes off, that explosion drives the kunai and your target gets peppered by knives under cover of the explosion. He might be immune to the explosion, but not the kunai driven by it, and the kunai doesn't care where it got its momentum from."

Hana scowled. "Sounds simple, but that sort of trap is difficult to arrange. Getting the aim right so you don't shred everything in range is the hard part. And missing on a trap like that when you're depending on it is no fun at all."

Tenten scowled. "Now you're making it sound like it's the samurai that don't stand any chance."

There came a moment of silence before Kurenai sighed, drooping her head. "That's not the impression we meant to give at all."

Anko, who was frowning, was also nodding along with Kurenai's denial. "If you know all of the tricks it can turn out differently, but most ninja, if they fight against most samurai, will result in the ninja being killed."

"It's the ways we're taught to fight." Hana agreed, waving an idle gesture. "Think of most of the clans you know of. Who are the big heavy hitters in Konoha right now? The Hyuga top the list at the moment. So say an average Hyuga fights a samurai. The Hyuga turns his eyes on; big deal, the samurai wasn't hiding and doesn't use any illusions. So no advantage. Next the Hyuga uses his clan's Gentle Fist on him, but the expressed chakra necessary to block up the samurai's chakra coils gets stopped and absorbed by his armor, so it doesn't do any damage. Then the samurai swings. Say this Hyuga knows their Heavenly Spin defense. He uses it, except the chakra emitted from all over his body is met by a sword that was created for the purpose of cutting through chakra barriers and does it all the time. End result: Dead Hyuga."

"Take a step back and say it was an Uchiha," Kurenai added an example of her own to help illustrate the point. "Against other ninja an Uchiha is lethal, but think of what happens against a samurai. The Sharingan uses chakra sight to predict movements and copy techniques, only the samurai uses all internal chakra, which all by itself puts a damper on things. We've all used it: with a Sharingan, expressed chakra is EASY to see! It's like watching a pro gambler try to cheat on a deal when you can see the faces on all of his cards. A child can do it. But turn that around, so all you can see are the backs of his deck, and it becomes much harder. Now that takes real work and effort, it doesn't come automatically anymore, and most people are too lazy to learn how to do it the hard way. But even if they did, those little clues that are there that would otherwise be visible to the Copy Wheel Eye aren't there because of the armor getting in the way, absorbing all of the chakra it can reach in order to express its own chakra shield. They've tried this before and no member of the Uchiha clan has EVER been able to use their bloodline against a samurai successfully! There's just too few cues to notice in the first place, and shielded too well from the interference generated by the dual functions of the armor. So an Uchiha can't predict or copy from him, and the illusions that eye might cast are once again useless on a samurai, who can stare him right in the eye and fear nothing."

"End result: Dead Uchiha," Hana concluded for her friend. "They grow to rely so much on that bloodline of theirs that, deprived of it, you'll find their other skills have all rotted. But even if they hadn't, once you've closed to combat range with a samurai, even jutsu flinging range, he's faster than you are and will charge and charge and charge until he's closed to sword range. Getting away once you've joined combat is not as simple as you'd think. Body Flicker doesn't take you nearly far enough to escape, unless you're an expert at it. And if he gets close enough it won't work at all. Nothing will, as his armor will absorb all the chakra you try to use, which is an ugly surprise to find in the middle of a deadly combat. Even forewarned, most ninja just aren't prepared to fight against a samurai, and don't survive their initial encounter."

The Inuzuka heiress then sighed. "Even Kiba, one of the best young ninja of our village and someone I'd put up against most members of any other hidden village, look how he'd do up against a samurai: Right off he'd start with Beast Mimicry for a boost of extra speed and power. But the moment he got close and really needed it, it would desert him, sucked down to fuel the chakra shield of the samurai's armor. Then, if he survived that initial brush, he'd use something like Piercing Fang, leaping head first toward his foe and launching into a spin that would normally rip an opponent to shreds. But the moment he got within range the chakra that makes him a powerful drill able to shred men or walls with ease just goes away and all he ends up with is a clumsy head butt on an armored enemy - not a way to win a fight."

"All of these are Very Powerful Ninja!" Anko emphasized. "Up against another ninja they'd do very well. Against a samurai? Poorly. The strategies that work very well on other ninja are the wrong way to approach fighting against a samurai. Tenten, as she was before the resets, was a regrettably feeble ninja compared to most in the Chunin Exam, yet she'd do better than most of them. Her strategy of standing off at range and peppering a target with thrown weapons is actually not a bad way to fight a samurai. Not the best. It won't work until he runs out of chakra and his shield collapses, but it won't get you killed the same way rushing in to close combat would. And the fact that she'd not be wasting her chakra on high power assault jutsu means she saves what she has for Body Flicker and Replacement technique escapes, Transformations to hide from him, and clones to draw him off. So she MIGHT actually survive a fight long enough to wear him down!"

Hana was nodding. "What it boils down to is that the 'brute force' approach adopted by most ninja lately simply doesn't work against our feudal lords. Samurai are too well protected from most of our techniques, and too good at their own specialty, to beat head on in face to face combat. If you want to beat one, you've got to be tricky. There's no other way of doing it!"

Shizune giggled. "The silly thing is, most monks are retired samurai. So if it came down to it, most monks could beat most samurai because they already know the other's tricks. But monks don't have the fancy armor or weapons that make them so deadly to us. So it comes out as a game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'. Ninja beats monk, monk beats samurai, and samurai beats ninja."

"Again, it's not true ALL of the time, but in ninety percent of the cases it is," Anko leaned back against the wall of the bath and sighed as the heat from the water went to work on her muscles.

"But as they all report to the daimyo, if any one faction gets out of line, the ruler of that country has another resource that can beat it," Hana finished.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Sorry about the wait. I've been involved in writing, just off-line stuff. A compiled list of Force powers for our old D6 Star Wars campaign for one.

Planning for the end of the resets is also going to take some time. But that seems to be approaching us fairly rapidly. 


	63. Chapter 63

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Three

by Lionheart

I I I

Tsunade cackled.

She couldn't help it! She'd just had the Most Excellent And Evil Plan EVER!

As Kazekage, leader of Suna, the village hidden in the sands, she had a whole slew of powerful ninja under her command. And Shizune had just reminded her of all those debts that had been pursuing her over the years.

Well, Suna was not a rich village. She'd never pay those gambling debts off if she lived there. There was just no way. The entire village didn't make enough money to do that. She'd end up forced at some point to part with her family necklace in order to pay off those loan sharks.

However, Kitsune Clan had a fair amount of money. Not enough to pay off the kind of debts her gambling had brought into being, but Naruto had become so excellently skilled a craftsman that there was little that he couldn't make, and most of what he did others would pay a small fortune for. And now some of the others in the clan were following in those footsteps.

Even taking on his wives as apprentices and farming out work to clones, it would be an unusual burden trying to pay off Tsunade's debts. They were magnificent in an oddly surreal and pathetic way. But most of the clan didn't feel like being enslaved to the prospect of 'work til you drop' for a few years in order to pay for Tsunade's drunken binges and gambling losses.

On the other hand, Tsunade was now Kazekage, with a whole village full of ninja under her command. Recently reminded of her debts, and nothing to distract her from dealing with the problem, she had come up with her Most Excellent And Evil Plan!

She assigned a few A-rank missions to Sand ninja to go out there and erase those debts, either by destroying the paperwork, or silencing the loan sharks and crime lords that held them, or both.

It was elegant, simple, and... Perfect!

It got Suna a little richer by having those missions, some of their better ninja got a chance not only to earn good pay but to go out into the world and use their skills in a practical environment, gaining valuable experience. Loan sharks kept stables of missing ninja as bodyguards, but nothing that could stop large teams of jonin, and the Sand teams could collect the bounties on those missing ninja at the same time as neutralizing the crime lords.

Better still, the cost of those few A-rank missions was low enough compared to the real debts, that Clan Kitsune would happily cover them for her! She didn't even have to use the village's operation budget!

Tsunade tilted the Kazekage hat to the back of her head and laughed. Now if only there was some sake around this place...

Sigh. Oh yeah. 'No drinking in Hidden Sand. It wastes water and has a stigma because of that.'

Groan. The kid would probably try to use this chance to get her to quit. He'd been quietly disapproving of her drunken binges for years. And Shizune, the traitor, would certainly help him!

Tsunade was partly through planning missions for secret sake smuggling when the idea came across that maybe this power was going to her head?

Nah!

I I I

The Mantis Clan were something amazing.

Even more amazing to the Kitsune Clan was how readily the people of Mantis accepted them. Tenten, aka Orange Blossom, aka Mikannohana (Mikan for short), considered them as family, and amazingly enough, that was good enough for the Mantis.

To Tenten this was an entirely new experience. She'd never had HER opinion pull that kind of weight before! Ninja clans were engaged in a constant series of tests and deceptions against each other. Trust was one of those things they could least afford to share freely, and was their most heavily guarded commodity, bar none. Most ninja gradually grew to trust fewer and fewer people until they were paranoid wrecks who couldn't trust anyone at all (and those who reached that state burned out rather quickly).

One of the many hazards of the profession.

But, while there were hints of an underlying caution (truly, she'd be more upset if there wasn't) the Mantis as a whole were perfectly willing to roll out the fine china and treat her Kitsune Clan family as visiting relations.

All on her say-so.

It was frankly a little terrifying to poor Tenten to have anyone trust her opinion THAT much! But it gave her a whole different perspective on what she meant to her birth family, and the Mantis Clan generally. The girl couldn't make up her mind whether to be a sobbing wreck crying tears of joy or a nervous one trying to deserve their high opinions of her.

She needn't have worried. Her experience during these resets had given her a skill set that was frankly astounding. She'd already been quite a remarkable thrown weapons mistress, and in some ways it was to be expected for her to be a little rusty on all of the Suna and Mantis Clan stuff.

She had been an undercover agent for half her life, now. And when she'd gone quiet there were unavoidable rumors of her going native, as so many others had done before her. That was just part of the costs of doing business in the intelligence department.

But her family had truly mourned her passing as she'd gotten lost. Now they had her back they were every bit as enthusiastic as though she'd been returned from the dead.

They were even holding an extravagant party in her honor. Now, Tenten had had a few parties before, but they were all small scale affairs, namely what an orphan with only a few friends could afford. The scale of the shindig the Mantis was holding, on the other hand, was the sort associated with what clans passed for a ninja village's royalty.

Of course, she'd been to these before, even had a few thrown in her honor, but that was all back before she'd turned seven and gotten assigned to deep cover as a way to punish her father for objecting to trying to kill Gaara. Not the sort of stuff that sticks in your memory strongly literally half a lifetime later, when everything associated with it had already been forgotten.

But it was glorious as she experienced it now.

In truth, it was not so new to her even so. One of Naruto's frequent parties would, in many ways, surpass even this. That boy had a positive flair for entertaining that never grew tiring.

But...

She knew Naruto loved her, KNEW it with that same soul-deep certainty that a person knows they exist. It was a priceless treasure, and yet... it made her feel a whole different kind of love to see and feel and hear others expressing that to her also.

The best diamond in the world is not diminished by also having the best sapphire.

She could be loved by Naruto AND her birth family now! There simply was no better state of existence she could imagine.

I I I

Naruto had been aware from his earliest days of learning craft skills that he did not, even after obsessive experimentation, know it all. There were clans of masters who'd carefully cultivated their art over generations, and after centuries had discovered secrets they shared with no one. The boy from Konoha did not have access to all of the environments or materials, so could not play with everything. Nor could he think of everything by himself. His imagination, great as it was, still had limits that could not encompass every lucky break or discovery made by thousands of minds across generations.

Mantis was one of those clans of masters that'd been smiths for a very long time, and had an interest in learning the smithing secrets and techniques of others. Also, being ninja, they had some ability to steal those techniques for their own use; and more than sufficient reason to do so, as it made their own armaments that much more effective, thus enabled them to live longer.

As a direct result, they were among the best smithing clans of Hidden Sand, which was itself a country famous for its blacksmiths - and being a military village, their best weapons or armor was something they'd never export.

Mantis tools and arms were simply extraordinary. Few could equal them. Most clans, even most villages, didn't even come close. And that was a big part of why they were more than slightly interesting in the Kitsune Clan's armor and weapons, specifically the techniques with which they'd made them.

Naruto had by sheer blunt force of incessant practice and experimentation discovered things they did not know.

And they had a lot to share in return!

There came a delicate, even discrete, offer of potential negotiations, seeing as how they were now all family through Tenten. This was, of necessity, a very genteel sort of probe as no one shares their best secrets casually, and the clans didn't know each other. Their only link was through Tenten, and to expect a tentative ally like that one to start gushing secrets was unheard of.

Well, unheard of to those who don't know Naruto.

"What?" the boy exclaimed, once the Mantis representative (Tenten's mom, actually) had finally gotten out a hint blunt enough for him to catch. "You want to know how I make this stuff?"

He rapped his breastplate with a silver gauntleted finger.

His bluntness over such a gentle probe horrified the woman.

"I'm so very sorry. I didn't mean..."

"Well, SURE!" the blond bounced, bubbling as he took her hand and started to drag her in the general direction of where he half thought he remembered their smithies were. "C'mon, let me show you. Do you need to change out of those party clothes first?"

The poor woman's jaw was hanging free at the moment.

Fortunately the clan head, her husband, came up and rescued her, taking his wife's side and confronting the boy's declaration with a bluntness to match his own, "You mean you'd share the Kitsune smithing techniques as easily as that?" He clarified because that statement was unbelievable to the man.

They'd fought wars over lesser smithing techniques than these!

Naruto stared at the man like he'd grown a third head, before narrowing his eyes. "Easy? No. But I'd die for Tenten, err Mikannohana... uh Mikan... do you mind if I just keep calling her Tenten? That's the name I've always known her by. It's the name we married under."

The girl's father indicated his assent. "No, that's alright. She's worn that name for half her life now. I can see her becoming attached to it. I can make it an official middle name for her, if you like."

"Thanks," Naruto posed, pointing a finger at the older gentleman from Sand. "Now, as for techniques... She is my wife! So I am your son! We are FAMILY! And family helps each other! I'll teach you everything I know."

"And we'll naturally do the same," Tenten's mother promised, bowing her head to hide her crying, touched this child loved her daughter so well.

The girl's father swallowed. That boy had just made a pledge of allegiance that was impossible to ignore! According to him, they were not two clans related by a single marriage, they were One Clan!

It was impossible to get any closer than he'd declared they already were. And, seeing as he'd brought their missing Mikannohana back to them and promised them a wealth of new information and techniques besides...

The Clan Head of Mantis reached out and carefully drew Naruto into a hug.

"Welcome home, son."

I I I

Naruto's childhood was a complete failure in any way you look at it. Everyone involved failed. The fourth didn't leave him any money or protection, didn't set him up with a new family, did not order anyone to take care of him, etc. He could have just as easily been slipped into a devastated family as declared an orphan. In fact, it would've hidden him much better to be just another Inuzuka, or whatever, than to have an unexplained past people might pry into.

Then the third thought it to be real great idea let the S ranked secret of his being the container out to a bunch of civilians. Even if they didn't hate the boy, wouldn't it make just as many enemies worldwide if it was known he was a potential super weapon, demon container as it would if known he was the fourth's son? Nothing about that choice made any sense.

Then we had the fact Naruto was already under assassination attempts by his own village. How could revealing his father hurt him more? If anything it'd be safer to have your enemies trying kill you than your own guards that are trusted to protect the boy making the attempts on his life.

If Naruto hadn't had the gift of regeneration he wouldn't have lived to the age of four. Dying before two was far more likely as one civilian or another slipped poison into his bottle of milk.

No, you'd have to be a real moron to try and raise a kid that way. There wasn't much that could've been done worse to make his situation more unbearable. Wild animals could literally have raised him better. For him to have turned out anywhere near normal was nothing less than a miracle.

So it was that when the Mantis accepted him... well, the poor boy was no longer the attention starved mess he had once been. Nor was he the skill-less loser no one had once bothered to train in anything. But it was also very different from his previous experiences to be accepted and loved by anything even vaguely resembling parents.

Even the older women who'd accepted him had generally done so under the aegis of snuggle bunnies than stern 'go do your chores' maternal types, and it was a different equation. Even the 'den mother' slot was different, as the one holding it never had any illusions as to who was actually in charge.

Tenten's mom and dad were GOOD parents! They cared about doing a good job, were good people generally, and had succeeded in raising a whole flock of well adjusted kids in the messed up environment of Suna, and in spite of them having the messed-up job of being ninja.

Only the Inuzuka clan had treated him with anywhere near the same level of kindness, and even then they'd had to overcome their own prejudices and barriers to do so. (There had also been some of that 'pack oriented' feeling coloring things. So, as the boy was very much an Alpha, there was little in the way of kindly looking after, guiding or instructing. He was an Alpha!)

Here, with the Mantis, he was simply their son. And if he needed to be told to go wash behind his ears he got told to go wash behind his ears!

And, yes, you may have fought S-class missing ninja to a standstill, but you still need to finish your vegetables if you are to grow up healthy and strong.

All of Kitsune began to breathe a sigh of relief as the Mantis clan stepped in and started doing what no one else had, providing good parental role models and a spot of stability in Naruto's life.

Suddenly he was awash in aunts and uncles, cousins and younger siblings inherited from having stepped in with Tenten to fill her former place. And the situation could not be doing anything better for either one of the family-starved young ninja.

It was like water to both of them, suddenly quenching an old thirst.

I I I

At the same time, Kitsune Clan (or their clones) were getting ready for going on their first Water Runs.

Naruto had learned, several times, that often the small lessons taught as much as the larger ones. Sometimes more. Water Runs might not have been a great challenge to their combat abilities, nor were they strangers to other countries - but Temari was right in that they taught desert navigation better than anything else.

And, well, they'd be working in a desert for a while. It was good to know how to travel and survive out in one. Besides, they really expected it to add a level of polish to those Suna chakra control exercises they'd all been learning.

Kankuro was even enjoying himself as he took the 'team lead' position for the trip. "You know how we've been bragging about our typical ninja's chakra control in Suna? Well, here is one example. On a typical Water Run we must cross dozens of miles of desert holding up not one but TWO different chakra control techniques. We've got up Sandstride to move fast, but you've also got to maintain Sunblock or you'll fry. Lose hold on either one and that stops or slows us down. Oh, and if a storm crops up you'll get to maintain not two, but FOUR different chakra techniques as we use Sandsight and Stormwalker techniques also. So you ready? Let's go!"

I I I

Naruto had, through the use of stealth and guile, taught himself martial arts equal to the best ninja academy students, placing himself firmly among the top rookie genin for skill. He'd even been forced to teach himself to top genin level twice, as the acquisition of his bloodline had thrown all of his memorized patterns for those body skills completely out of whack. Then he'd been held back by only having his mind know those moves, but having later copied those skills into reflex memories using a stolen Sharingan, he'd doubled his ability at using them. That put him squarely where a rookie chunin ought to be. And while that was good, it had not been enough for the ambitious lad.

So he'd implemented his plan for disguising himself as Sasuke to get some of the better combat teachers of Konoha to train him further. That had capped out at about mid-chunin level of martial arts. The reason why the new limit was simple, his body conditioning (with the exception of unreal stamina) was at the level of an average academy student despite the boost in physical abilities he got through his bloodline, and couldn't keep up with the demands placed on it for operating at the higher levels. Naruto had even practiced and trained for a few weeks during the wait between the second and final exam, getting himself in better physical shape before approaching those special teachers. And, while it had helped, it couldn't lift him further than he was now. He'd played that card for all it was worth.

So the young lad had, once more, run into a ceiling on his martial art abilities. It didn't disturb him as much this time. For one, he'd already had to suffer through the disappointment of being blocked and cheated it once, so the limit did not seem as real or as absolute this time as it had initially. For another, his skills were now much higher, and it was easier to be at peace with them being closer to the desired range. Genin level martial arts were a weakness, whereas chunin level ones were merely not much of a strength.

Besides, the real obstacles of not having proper instruction were no longer the limiters they once were, as once more he'd studied beyond his body's ability to keep up. So, now if the resets were to end suddenly, he would not be stuck looking for teachers, and unable to use his best tricks on them for fear of being caught and no resets to pull him out of trouble. No, all he really had to do now was get himself in much better physical shape (something he'd already learned how to do under Gai) and his close combat skills would rise on their own to the top chunin range.

Top chunin was not nearly so much of a disappointment as top rookie genin. Many jonin had lapsed to or not studied their martial arts beyond that level. It was an acceptable standard if they could compensate with other strengths.

Most ninja were specialists, because it paid off better to be really amazingly good at one thing (so long as it could overcome your opponents), than to be mediocre in several. It was also easier to train several specialists than one generalist. That made for a powerful argument of economics. So most ninja you were likely to meet would only be good at one thing; although they'd have some supporting skills in other arts, as being too specialized made them too easy to beat, and there existed counters for every ninja ability. All of them.

Martial arts was a 'must have' area for all ninja, even if only as a supporting skill, because a need for it was far too likely to happen under even the most carefully controlled combat situation. But it didn't have to be a strength for everyone; and as a supporting skill it could afford to lag a little behind your specialty. So there were plenty of jonin with chunin-level martial arts.

Of course, chunin level combat skills were unacceptable to a Kage-rank ninja, as that was just lagging too far behind where they ought to be. But, for a weakness, it still wasn't nearly as bad as being a rookie genin in those skills.

So, while disappointing, being stuck this time didn't hurt nearly as much.

And one other thing to consider was Naruto had some very good trainers in Clan Kitsune with him now. So he couldn't be entirely denied instruction, as he'd been once before. A bit of decent instruction, and some time to get his body conditioned to the proper degree of fitness, and he'd strike jonin level on those skills easily. So it didn't even seem like a proper block, only a delay.

And, while jonin level martial arts would not be something a Kage could brag about, if he had sufficient strength in other areas it wouldn't hold him back from getting the rank either. After all, not even Kages could perform every skill at Kage level. No one could perform that perfectly.

Besides, that moniker, 'mid-chunin' was a deceptive one. Naruto had eagerly sought out training in every field he could find. So he was a 'mid-chunin' in not one style of fighting techniques, but several.

By knocking out and impersonating academy students, he'd learned the Konoha Ninja Academy style. Then, by training with Hinata and observing Neji with a stolen Sharingan, they'd followed roughly the same pattern. Hinata was good at the Gentle Fist, but only about top genin good. Then, by copying and practicing Neji's style they about doubled that and acquired roughly the same level of ability as doubling the academy style, rookie-chunin. Then it was a fairly simple matter to approach her teachers as Hinata, and though they were surprised (astonished and disgusted more like) by her rapid leap in skill, they still went ahead and trained her to the level where they could, and due to those same constraints of body conditioning, that ended up at about the same level as their other martial art style: mid-chunin.

Neji actually had more skill than that. The obsessive boy had a grudge against the main family and a need to prove himself so that he'd driven to where he had at least top-chunin ranking in those skills, if not low jonin. So they wouldn't be defeating him in that family's style soon. Actually, the whole family was a touch obsessive about their martial arts training, and ALL of them averaged a step or so above where their real rank listed them. Hiashi came close to touching Kage rank with his Gentle Fist skills.

From that perspective, it was a little easier to see why they'd always felt Hinata was something of a disappointment. They were wrong. That girl was a shy, gentle soul, and being unwilling to hurt your family didn't make you a failure, quite the opposite really; but... well, while the Kitsune weren't willing to forgive the Hyugas for abusing the favorite blue-haired girl, they could at least see where the mistreatment had come from.

It didn't make it any easier to live with, however. And each and every one of them had had to take her place using Shapeshift to receive the instruction they needed to push their martial art skills in that style from rookie to mid chunin. So they'd all been forced to suffer in her place.

And that did not endear the Hyuga Clan to most of them.

Gai's Strong Fist style came about originally as something of an accident. When Naruto had first stolen a Sharingan and was playing around with it, he'd unintentionally copied that style from Lee when he fought Sasuke. And, to not feel like he'd betrayed the Geniuses of Hard Work, he'd rather dutifully gone and sought out genuine instruction from the pair of them.

That was probably Naruto's weakest style, as it depended so much on having developed the body to extreme levels of performance. So even though he'd done the full regime of learning what he could, and technically knew that kind of fighting to the same level of his others, it actually fought at less than that because he didn't have the muscles to back it up.

Of course, with Beast Mimicry up, he could approach the same fighting level with that as he did with the others under Beast Mimicry, so the skill was there even if the strength to back it up was not. Gai and Lee could still bat him around like a racquetball, but he wasn't disappointed about that, as the duo was EAGER to train him up to the same level they were on once these resets were over. And Gai was easily Kage rank on his fighting technique.

So that was something to look forward to.

Another martial art that came about almost by accident was finding those scrolls on the Uchiha clan style in Sasuke's hidden stash, and reading them back when he was trying anything he could to improve anything he could and had few enough angles to pursue he was grasping at anything. They hadn't taught him much, but they had given him a basis for understand some of what they'd later captured, watching Itachi slaughter Sasuke for becoming a 'poo-wielder' and dragging the Uchiha name through the muck. And relentless practice (and a few repeats, one even where they replaced Sasuke in that fight) had refined that further, to where it was almost the equal of the others. Gai had been a surprising help in that department, having fought several Sharingan users back when there was a clan of them, and having learned much of their style simply because he was that good at analyzing the martial arts of his opponents.

Going to Kakashi, shapeshifted as Sasuke, and asking for refinement on that style of the art had helped as well, adding what final polish they'd needed to reach parity with their other fighting styles.

Far from being accidental, the Inuzuka clan art was almost thrust upon him. Being Hana's snuggle bunny, and having worked who knows how long in their family kennel, Naruto simply was not permitted to be useless at that clan's fighting art once he'd basically become one of them.

Something told him the Mantis clan art would be the same.

Similarly with Orochimaru's Snake Style. Anko knew more than the basics of it, and what she taught them had been refined by watching Orochimaru use it while using a Sharingan on him. Even Anko's skill at that art had skyrocketed. The armed fighting styles, practicing with available weapons and throwing had all followed the same general pattern as his learning the Academy style did.

So, while in each of those it was possible to categorize Naruto as having 'mid-chunin' levels of skill, calling him a 'mid-chunin' level martial artist was deceptive, as each of those styles focused on separate things, and were more or less useful than others, depending on circumstance.

Currently lacking much in the way of sheer, brute force, the Gentle Fist style was presently among their most effective forms. But take a sword or spear against a Gentle Fist user and that put them at a disadvantage, especially if you could fight them remotely, like through a puppet. The very thing that made Gentle Fist a strength, it's ability to disrupt chakra coils, made it a less than ideal form for facing those things without them.

Strong Fist was practically its polar opposite. Face those guys who used it with a puppet and they'd powder the thing. Nor did they fear weapons, and spent considerable time learning unarmed counters for them.

The Academy style tried to be decent at everything, neither exceptional nor suffering any serious disadvantages. And the Uchiha style tried to merely be an improvement on that, focused on trying to reach a higher level by using more advanced and difficult moves (mostly because the Uchiha hadn't had to be concerned about how long those took to train normally).

The Inuzuka was a direct, straight line style using hard attacks and blocks, while Orochimaru's Snake style was again it's opposite, using curving and circular motions, dodging, and only the rare straight line attacks. One was force and power and the other deception and speed.

Generally speaking, that is. They were ninja, being too predictable was a flaw that could easily get you killed. But nevertheless, they still developed a focus to each art, and an emphasis in what they used, based on their own abilities. And families generally had similar enough traits that strong parents had strong kids, and quick ones passed on the body types to have quick kids. So gradually, almost inevitably, they leaned steadily toward a family emphasis on using the best of their natural traits toward the biggest advantage.

To do anything else invited failure, as everyone who opposed you tried to maximize their own strengths, and without the ability to compete you lost.

The Kitsune Clan style was still under development, but they had plenty of sources to draw from and no end of opportunities for practicing it. They had so much time and resources for development, in fact, that they could ignore some of the usual limitations about working only toward your strengths, as they had almost limitless ability to correct for their weaknesses.

Well, everything except strength, that is. That was going to be a real limiter on their developing style until they could actually get better bodies. However, they also had Gai and his prodigy Lee helping them, and if there was anyone more focused on and interesting in perfecting fighting arts they'd never heard of them. Those two kept adding priceless insights into the developing style, and it was looking that, with their help and the endless opportunities to test and practice and refine their art, it was going to be a devastating one.

They hoped. Of course, it helped they had so many people to test it against: Sound Ninja, Sand Ninja, and of course sparring partners from Leaf. And most of those would go to any lengths to defeat them, so if there were flaws that was the sort of treatment that would expose them as they arose.

Of course, it never hurt to have more fuel available to add to the fire. Martial arts styles were condensed fighting experience, refined by practice and thorough testing. But having more people's experience to draw from was always a good thing.

So, to that end, Naruto sent a number of clones to the Suna Ninja Academy. Being a different village in a different environment and with different views and so different experiences and techniques, the Suna academy taught a different style than the one taught in Konoha.

Better still, as Tsunade was their Kazekage, she could simply order them to teach him. He didn't have to disguise himself as anyone!

Besides, this was truly an awesome opportunity to refine the clan's puppetry skills!

I I I

Author's Notes:

According to TOR submission guidelines, they prefer book submissions by beginning authors to be between 80,000 and 120,000 words.

This story is one year old. In that time I have written 260,000+ words on it. Depending on whether you count high or low, that's between 2 to 3 novels in length. Then, during that year, I've written almost another 200,000 words on Partially Kissed Hero, and maintained sundry other stories.

Since professional authors average about a novel every year, I don't think anyone has any cause to complain about my writing speed.

I've written so much on my stories this year that I can't even realistically pretend to keep up correspondence with my friends, or grant the feedback others whom I genuinely admire truly deserve (my apologies for not getting back to you Grum. I loved the story segments, and your comments). One of my favorite pleasures was reading Jonque's take on my Missing Hokage challenge, yet I didn't drop him a line when he hinted he wanted one, and while I feel guilty for that I feel MORE guilty in that he seems to have lost his momentum on what was an excellent story, and I fear if I'd had the time to support him he would've kept going.

And unlike some authors I'm not giving lame excuses about my car dying (it did), or my transmission needing to be replaced (it did), or about losing my job (I did) or getting hospitalization level sick without medical insurance (I did, twice) or setting my affairs in order when I reached the 'Gosh, I don't know if you're going to make it' stage (I did).

I'm feeling better. Crises all dealt with for now. Still, you haven't heard a peep. I've just gone on publishing chapters, and now I'm getting nagged about abandoning this story?

Sometimes it is possible to feel unappreciated, a bit. Other times I wave my hands and say, 'what the hay, they have problems too'. I wouldn't mind reading more of my favorite authors either. (Speaking of which, when is Skysaber going to get off his duff and post more chapters of A Wizard of Gotham? Or Ruroni Ranko?)

Many have also asked if they can use my ideas. Sure, just gimme credit and a link so I can read those stories, ok?

I like to read stories as much as you do.


	64. Chapter 64

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Four

by Lionheart

I I I

Author's Forward:

I was going to leap right in to doing this, and in fact had begun it right after publishing my last. Then family I had not seen for years dropped by for a visit and during the week they stayed the youngest gave us all the pneumonia she had and I spent a while barfing up my lungs. Still, I'm feeling better.

Now back to writing!

Nothing reignites my fervor for this series quite like rereading old chapters of it.

FYI - the 'review' chapters are as much to keep thing fresh in my own mind as anything else. Do you have any IDEA how many facts I have to juggle in order to keep this story straight? It scares me sometimes.

Besides, you have no right to complain. I call a chapter done when it hits 10 pages on my word processor, and the last one hit 9 BEFORE I'd started to put in any review material at all! Then it went straight on up to 15! So it was half again the size of a normal chapter, and nearly a full one of normal material. So those who want to complain about my abusing them by making a chapter 'all review' can experiment with anatomically unpleasant things.

I I I

The ability to leave Shadow Clones around meant that Konoha wasn't even aware they were missing the members of Clan Kitsune as they went off and discovered a new life in the village of Suna.

In fact, a VERY familiar scene was taking place at the Kitsune, formerly Uchiha, compound as Hiashi Hyuga led a party consisting of various big wigs, village elders and the Hokage to go put a cursed seal on Hinata's forehead for the rather dubious crime of marrying the boy she loved more than life itself.

Once upon a time they'd had to summon Gaara for his support on this. They still liked to; after all, the greater part of the clan ADORED Gaara! He was just too cute and manipulatable into being a cuddle bear! A few kids games and the very sincere and heartfelt offer of friendship and you instantly had one of the most deadly dangerous demon containers in history as your happy little lapdog. And, being rather HEAVILY influenced by the Inuzuka over the years, the clan were also very fond of dogs, lap or otherwise (and especially cute little lapdogs that could become slavering attack beasts on demand).

No, his getting all protective of them was one of the most adorable things EVER! So they gladly encouraged it.

Staring at the hair trigger psychopath blocking their way into the main house, and the people they were there to speak to arrayed out behind, with clones dotting every rooftop around, the ninja in Hiashi's group realized they were in the beginnings of a battle situation and stopped where they were, spreading out a touch to get fighting room.

Catching the first of the ANBU escort to run for cover in a Sand Coffin, Gaara squashed the man like a grape, spraying his blood all over the visiting party just to make his point before he growled in low tones, "You wanted something?"

Seeing that dozens of Naruto clones had spread bags of sand all around the visiting party, none of the others made a rush to take cover.

Hiashi Hyuga didn't care, striding boldly forward to the front of his group and declaring, "We are here for my daughter."

The man's bloodline was activated. He was no fool, and was ready for combat to spring out from any direction.

What he was NOT prepared for was for the demon brat Uzumaki to make a single, very familiar and very disturbing, handseal and send out a massive pulse of energy that dropped his Branch House escort in nothing flat.

Hiashi STARED at the boy who'd dropped the Hyuga Branch House members like flies, feeling the very underpinnings of his world fail him in that moment.

The brat knew how to control the Caged Bird Seal.

The Hyuga were doomed.

Those controls were their best kept secret for a reason. And they'd stayed the exclusive property of the Main House Hyuga since the Caged Bird Seal got created.

While every Main House member knew the controls of necessity, they became useless to any who got transferred to the Branch House, as those handseals would 'ground out' in the Caged Bird Seal the former Main House member was wearing, inflicting the death or pain intended for another on himself - not a few former Main House members committed suicide that way, unable to bear the enslavement they had endorsed being inflicted on others once it came time for them to share those chains.

And no one had ever before had to fear those controls in the hands of a non-Hyuga, as not even the most bitter Branch House member would teach them to anyone outside the clan (and get themselves under even MORE controllers, who might disagree with each other and grant conflicting demands), while the Main House were as paranoid as it was possible to be about handing away control of their primary asset - the Branch House Hyuga.

Having the ability to control the Caged Bird seal in the hands of anyone BUT a Main House member put the entire clan in sudden, terrible jeopardy.

It was a crisis of epic proportions, and Hiashi's stern and stoic expression sank into horrified dismay, melting like wax into an anguished look. The man's eyes grew so round the Hokage wondered how they stayed in his face, and he let an amused thought passed his mind about whether his expression would continue to melt until it dribbled off his face.

For Hiashi, it was very much as though he'd been suddenly informed that his always unquestioned power had merely been a joke that had been played on him by others - and they were through pretending now.

He had been head of the mighty Hyuga clan.

Now, the 'mighty' part of that had been dashed to unrecoverable bits, and it was debatable whether he could even be said to be head of his own clan. With someone else able to order his clan members about with as much force as he, it could no longer be said that he was the unquestioned ruler of his own family. He could cite law and precedent, but force was force. Whoever had it could make himself obeyed. He could go crawling to the village council and beg them to tell Uzumaki not to use that power, but it was not the same as an outsider not having it.

And Hiashi was not a well-loved man, even by his own clan. Even the remaining Main Branch elders would look dimly on him for losing so much of their power.

The Hyuga had always been powerful for two reasons: One, they possessed a powerful bloodline and a unique fighting style that complimented each other perfectly - that made them individually significant. But the second main reason was that they were a large clan.

There were quite a number of powerful bloodlines that had only one or two active members. It said great things about the Hyuga's genes that they were able to field dozens of fully trained fighters with fully activated bloodlines. The White Eyes was generous that way, showing up in every member of the clan, with no great scarcity or requirements to activate; very unlike other major lines whose gifts appeared in only a handful out of each generation (or nearly disappearing completely, like the Wood Techniques), or where a user had to go to great lengths in order to activate it (like the Sharingan).

It was so prolific and generous, in fact, that they'd never had a shortage of users of it. That gave them more influence than one might initially think.

A powerful individual was merely a powerful individual. However, having a large mass of powerful people working together transcended anything one lone ninja could do. More people could go on more missions, possess a wider range of skills, and accomplish more things. That was why ninja gathered together in villages, and the basis for the might of their whole entire clan.

Having a bloodline present and usable in anyone who was born to a family member gave them a tremendous advantage over those whose gifts showed up in a more limited fashion. In fact it was so generous the clan had long ago become fanatical about deliberately limiting its spread, lest it spread beyond those they could easily control. But the methods they used to do so were frankly brutal, and made them no friends.

The Hyuga's were also stupid about that in a major way, in that the method of control they used was to have a handful of clan members enslave the rest, creating bitter, seething resentment inside the family against their rule. And really, it was the clan's numbers that gave them the largest part of their ability to project force (and from that, their precious influence).

From the perspective of certain Hyuga (all of them Main House members) it resulted in a perfect situation to have near-total control over their Branch House siblings, as they did not have to fear disobedience or betrayal. They could always count on the Branch House as guards or servants, because the least disobedience could be punished instantly with pain or even death.

However, that control ONLY worked so long as one hand alone held the leash!

The bitter, seething resentment of the Branch House didn't matter so much so long as the lid stayed on the pot, so to speak, but any crack in that wall of control could destroy the Main House entirely overnight.

That crack came when more than one person could give commands that had to be obeyed on pain of death. Should Person A, say 'Do This' and Person B say, 'No, Don't', if either one could kill you for disobeying them, you were going to die either way, so you might as well do as you pleased - like whacking Person A for abusing you all of your life.

Even the fact that such a quandary COULD exist could get the Branch House thinking dangerous thoughts.

Inside the Main House that danger didn't exist. It'd been carefully eliminated before the first seals had even been applied by forward-thinking members (who had later been astonished by having the seal applied to themselves so the secrets of its creation would not be spread). The first precaution was that all Main House members theoretically had the same goals, so would not give contradictory orders in the first place.

The second great precaution was the teeth behind the first, in that the Clan Head knew handseals that could override the orders of any other Main House member (and would quickly slap a Caged Bird Seal on any Main House member to press the issue once corrected). So conflicting orders didn't happen among them, and if they did, were quickly put a stop to.

However, the Clan Head's override only extended so far as his chakra control could reach, and that was limited to, practically speaking, his immediate presence. And he could be caught off-guard, even so.

Witness the dead bodyguards laying around Hiashi's stunned feet at that very moment.

Sarutobi was caught between being appalled at the circumstance or amused over the outrageous expressions flitting over the Hyuga Head's face as the previously untouchable Clan Head had to deal with being struck a mortal blow to his authority. Most of the Town Elders were suffering similar distress, to varying degrees, making for a concert of dumbstruck expressions alternating with horror, disgust and fear.

And, Sarutobi considered, they had great cause to fear, especially the Hyuga.

Having their control method gave Naruto PERFECT blackmail material. Once Hinata (and who else could it be?) had shown him how to control the Caged Bird Seals that enslaved the Branch House, they dared not go against him.

Because, quite frankly, Naruto was a walking time bomb from that point on, from the Hyuga perspective.

What can you do about a boy who can perform one handseal, and push out enough chakra to kill all of your clan except four old men and two tiny girls? Naruto could manage a chakra wave that could cover all of Konoha, plus a good few miles more in every direction, instantly killing, via the Caged Bird Seal, ANY and ALL Branch House members in that zone (aside from maybe the one or two that Hiashi could personally protect in that time).

Kill him by surprise? That had been tried his entire life. It was nothing new to him, and indeed no attempts had succeeded yet. It's pretty hard to surprise someone who is always facing attempts on his life. On the other hand, Naruto could, in less than a second, take out ALL of the Hyuga's disposable fighters and more than ninety five percent of their overall strength.

Although Sarutobi didn't know this, Naruto'd even done it once or twice, just to see the look on Hiashi's face when he realized that he was head of an empty clan. Four old geezers don't make for much of a breeding pool, and neither does one tiny girl (Hinata would naturally NOT be taking place in any Hyuga breeding program, since she was already taken and quite happily committed to producing Kitsune, when producing any children at all became possible - the point behind Naruto's awesome demonstration more often than not).

Reducing the Hyuga from the Most Powerful Clan in Konoha to has-been remnants of a once-great family barely hanging on by their fingernails was worth quite a few laughs in the bargain.

But the Hokage was aware that Naruto could, with a single handseal, create a Hyuga Massacre just slightly short of the dread Uchiha Massacre, any time he wanted to. And the Hyuga had created for themselves the tool that gave him that ability to put them in that situation.

They had put a chain over their own necks and now Naruto held the leash.

Sarutobi smiled, realizing that they would NOT be putting a Caged Bird Seal on Hinata this, or indeed any other, day. Not unless Hiashi was willing to sacrifice his entire clan (save for four old men and one tiny girl) to do it.

No. The power of the Hyuga in Konoha had ended. They may not realize it, but they would be obeying the orders of the Uzumaki from now on. They didn't have a choice. Any other course left them reduced to a scattered handful of members, barely worth the name of clan.

Sarutobi suppressed a grin, knowing Hiashi had now effectively enslaved himself and his clan to a boy he'd always vehemently opposed in every venue.

Yes, life could deal in sweet ironies indeed sometimes.

I I I

Using the skills of a thief and burglar obtained acting on a revenge trip long ago, where he had broken into the houses of those merchants who had been cheating him out of his meager orphan allowance by massively overcharging him for the worst quality goods, one of Naruto's clones slipped inside the dwelling place of one of Konoha's ANBU.

Yugao had finally tracked down one of the people that had checked out one of those five books on chakra control from the collection of teacher resources for the ANBU classes, and he was there to collect it.

And, frankly, his talents were more than adequate for that challenge.

What made the ANBU different from the rest of the ninja of Konoha was not their skill level, although that was SUPPOSED to be what did it. No, they had just as many incompetents and slackers as the general population, and by and large were not all they should have been.

No, the masked ninja were not the undefeatable ghosts they should have been, or were supposed to be. But they did have a resource that was intended to place them there.

The ANBU classes were basically the ninja academy, only the next step up. There they taught the basics of pressure points, plus stealth and infiltration beyond what the academy touched on. It was also where they gave a ninja his first instruction on the sealing arts; and instructors there demanded a much higher level of combat proficiency than the official ninja academy tolerated.

Being through the private ANBU academy should put all of a person's basic skills at about the level of a chunin, once all was said and done. And, like the basic ninja academy they taught everything all at once. You could not afford to overly specialize there or they would fail you from the course. One had to practice not only martial arts, sealing or illusions, but all of them at once.

It was easier to train a handful of specialists than one generalist, but ANBU were supposed to be the best of the best, able to deal with any situations that came up, and to do that they had to have a broad range of skills. So they taught them basically from where the academy left off up to the next level, in all departments, plus a few new ones.

Even most jonins, once they got accepted into ANBU, learned a great deal about subjects they had never previously touched, ones that were outside of their established specialties.

Thus, an ANBU jonin was supposed to be superior to a regular service jonin, an ANBU chunin better than a regular service chunin. There were no ANBU genin, for obvious reasons. Quite a few exceptional genin did get their chance to attend ANBU classes, but if they graduated got promoted automatically.

The private ANBU academy was one of the ways around the regular chunin exams. It was not deemed wise to let EVERY higher-ranked ninja's face be shown in open competitions between villages, and the ANBU were masked for a reason.

Aside from the Hunter Ninja, however, most ANBU never left Konoha. They were the FBI or secret police of the village, meant as their primary mission to keep the rest of the ninja in line. So, unlike the bulk of those ninja who were going out on missions and using all their skills, ANBU generally did not face actual combat with any kind of regularity, and this blunted their skills.

In fact, having been peaceful for so long, nor having any significant rebellions among their ranks, the peace inside of Konoha had been going on for a long enough time now that their ANBU had grown quite rusty over that lull.

It was that fact more than any other that led to so many deaths among the villagers when the attack came. ANBU were considered to be the primary protectors, the first line of defense, and they'd grown so used to peace that their skills had gotten rusty to the point where more ANBU died than any other class of ninja during the assaults.

They met the attacks, as was expected of them, but the skills expected of them had atrophied under disuse so long that they broke instantly under the assaults of the more recently honed ninja from Suna and Sound. They didn't even significantly slow those assaults down, much to their own surprise.

Orochimaru had been very well aware Konoha's ANBU were out of practice. That was one of the many factors that convinced him the invasion would succeed.

Troops that have been in garrison for a long time have ALWAYS been prey to those with recent field experience. Peace was poison to an elite military unit. The edge doesn't stay sharp. Like muscles, you use it or you lose it. It was a universal law, like gravity. And training was hard, unpleasant, and boring, so most people eventually slack off on it given a low enough present need.

A canny ruler aware of that problem would've enacted aggressive practices of hunting enemy or missing ninja, then rotated all of his ANBU through the Hunter Ninja branch so they could all get recent field service. But Sarutobi was not a man known for aggressive practices in anything. He saw himself as a man of peace, and peace was good for a great many things, but producing highly advanced killer instincts among veteran troops was not among them.

Since he was a military, and not a civilian, leader, letting his troops get out of shape was Sarutobi's fault. New leadership has a tendency to notice such problems and shake things up a bit, clearing out cobwebs. But Sarutobi had been in command for a very long time, letting things slide into a comfortable routine, and Orochimaru was perfectly willing to take advantage of that. His force, made up in large part of recently missing ninja, among the hardest troops with the most recent experience to be found, hit the Konoha ANBU and shattered it like glass when they met.

It was like a bunch of parade ground ponies getting suddenly and savagely mauled by vicious trench dogs.

It was ugly, brutal, yet effective.

Orochimaru had planned his invasion well. His hard-bitten, scarred troops went straight for the jugular of his opponent while Konoha's ANBU were still waking up from their peaceful, sleepy state of comforting sameness. And it wasn't until the regular service ninja began to help that the battle had swung back in Konoha's favor. Part of that was numbers beginning to tell, Konoha was larger than both Sand and Sound combined, so it could absorb some losses and still fight back hard, but it was also that the regular service leaf ninja had more recent field experience than most of their ANBU, and so were less caught unprepared or off-guard by the assault.

Although, not expecting to be caught up in an attack on their home turf, even they were surprised, and took some time getting up to proper speed. Most of the damage and casualties had come early on in that fight.

Naruto had spent a LOT of time studying this invasion over and over again, and those were some of the conclusions he'd come to.

The guy who's apartment he was breaking into now was not exceptional among their ANBU. He was actually fairly weak for an ANBU jonin, and would die rather messily early on, during the initial rush before even getting his guard up.

But the guy had been studying, rather lazily, a few high ranked techniques that he hadn't had the chakra control to pull off. So, he'd checked out a manual on advanced chakra control techniques from the ANBU library.

No, as Naruto's clone was breaking into his apartment to reclaim that book so he could study it, he had to bitterly reflect that some of the merchants he'd stolen from had kept better care to avoid intruders.

Then again, people stole from merchants. Who'd be crazy enough to try to steal from an ANBU?

Well, everybody, if they knew how poorly this guy protected his place. The only problem Naruto's clone had was finding the book amidst all that stuff. Eventually he located it under a stack of magazines that had a potted plant perched on top (telling him how diligently that jonin had been about studying that manual), and, replacing the guy's shampoo with glue and his toothpaste with wasabi, along with another prank or two as a reminder not to be so careless, he fled back out of the window, one sleeping jonin none the wiser.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Another one of those things I've never really read a good description for was what ANBU were, and what they were for - and, most importantly, why these supposed elites always died like flies in the face of any threat.

Oh, Bakamoto I'm sure has described them (BADLY, like he did everything else). But I wanted a reason that worked, not what he imagined. So, like my technology background, I came up with my own reason that worked because the one he gave was just so lame I couldn't stomach it with a straight face.

And it is inconceivable that any military leadership would be without its own foil to use in the case of rebelling troops. The USA split their armed forces into distinct and separate services, so if the army rebelled the navy or air force could put it down, etc. Others have reserved elite military units with their own special equipment and training as a Presidential Guard, and that's what I saw as the source of the ANBU.

But military coups occur so regularly in real life that in certain areas of the world it's almost a joke. Whenever a tin pot dictator enacts a policy unpopular with the army, whoever is at the head of that army overthrows him to become the next tin pot dictator of that country; rinse and repeat. They TRY to keep control for themselves, but you can't run a country without delegating some authority, and eventually it gets away from them.

Every time.

The first step out of that cycle is to take aside some unit of troops, give them better treatment and equipment and training than anyone else, and say "Hey, your job is to protect me from the rest of the army, in case they get out of control." And, since most countries of the Naruto world don't rule by love for their benevolent leader, I see ANBU in the 'elite presidential guard' role.

Konoha might not need them for that, but other countries would, and the Leaf would simply be falling in line with the pattern set by others to say, "Well, every other country has ANBU, we need some too!"


	65. Chapter 65

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Five

by Lionheart

I I I

On top of the ninja academy roof Naruto ate an apple. It was really a very nice apple. He'd stolen it from the Hokage's table, and the Hokage always had the nicest food. It was golden cheeked and delicious, an import from Fruit Country, he thought.

Tossing the depleted core over his shoulder, the boy ninja bounced it off of Orochimaru's head just as the Sannin-disguised-as-a-Grass-ninja left the building, already late for one of his secret meetings - one too important to delay for a fight over having gotten beaned with an apple core.

The boy seemingly paid no attention to the Sannin's discomfit, going right on reading the book he'd climbed the academy roof to get some time alone for.

Naruto's chakra control had begun to shoot up again, after who-knows-how-long a pause under the general heading of, 'Above Average (Barely) although perfect with seal limiters'.

No small part of that was due to the recently discovered book the ANBU jonin had been using as a plant stand. It was the next step up from the three basic chakra control exercises taught, and almost exactly what he needed.

The book talked about combos of chakra exercises, and the first examples it gave were things Naruto had already done, having figured them out on his own, such as standing on water while floating leaves over his head, standing on the sides of trees while floating leaves, floating leaves over all parts of his body instead of just the forehead and hands, and so on.

But Naruto, in his practice, had stopped there, and that book didn't.

The next step it described was to combine water walking in unusual ways he'd never thought of. The very first step was to enhance and refine his ability to water walk (a process of enhancing surface tension with chakra so the water could hold his weight) until he could create fruit-sized balls of water that did not break. Like a water balloon but without the balloon, he would simply be enhancing the surface tension yet further until it could be formed into balls. The skin would be hard enough so it held up under handling.

That was a great deal harder than it sounded, and not only taught him a lot, but led to some great water fights in and out of the clan. Heck, the surface tension could be raised high enough to harden the balls until they stayed together in spite of kicking, so they could play soccer with them.

Gaara loved that.

It was also interesting to note, paint could be formed into water balloons the same way, and splattered most satisfactorily on impact - a fact the Uchiha could attest to, as he had Sakura's shade of pink dribbling down his scowling face during the next written exam.

The next step after that was where the real payoff started. Once a ninja could form those independent balls of water he could try levitating them like he'd learned to do with leaves.

This was a lot harder than it sounded, as the chakra flows to maintain the hard outer skin of a ball of water were almost impossible to sustain without touching it, at least the first couple of times, until one started to get the hang of it. In fact, it was to learn that lesson that the clan got together and played so many games of soccer or baseball using hardened water balls - of course starting out with bouncing smaller ones around like hackee sacks, as a way of keeping up frequent contact, building up to longer periods of not.

However, worse still for the aspiring student, the chakra flows for floating a leaf weren't anywhere near the same flow rate or pattern as the stuff for holding a globe of water together, and getting your chakra to split up and do both things when it wants to combine into either one was hard in a way nothing Naruto had ever done before was.

The only thing he could compare it two was trying to sing two different notes at the same time. Your vocal apparatus was made up to do one or the other, not both at the same time.

Actually, there were monks that had learned how to sing chords, but Naruto didn't know that. Although it would've encouraged him if he did. Only the fact that he KNEW other ninja had done this before him kept him going... and, of course, the leaps and bounds he made in chakra control trying.

Compared to the floating ball of water technique, the other exercise was lots simpler. It was to combine sticking to the side of a tree with water walking using those same balls of water the first had had him develop. That meant holding a chakra-skinned water balloon to his body with more chakra, and once again it fought him, willing to do either one but not both simultaneously.

The next stage after that was the tricky one, however, and that was to roll the water ball around and over his body using chakra alone, without touching it with his hands.

That caused another one of those eye-crossing moments where he knew it could be done in theory, but seemed to splash himself with water every time, as each and every single attempt was more complicated than he'd imagined.

He was now long accustomed to flaring chakra out of certain parts of his body: his feet, head and hands primarily, although he had practiced sitting on the sides of trees, or hanging off by his back or shoulders. He'd also floated leaves over most parts he could imagine. However, all that shared one thing in common - a fairly static location. While walking on a tree the part you used was your feet, or, hanging off it by your back, your back.

Here, the object was to move it all across your body like a slug racing from point to point; and that was harder than it sounded, as to move it from your hand to your elbow required not just that you stop emitting chakra from your hand and start it from your elbow, you had to kind of roll it all the way, going from on and off in a continual line between - and all of that without breaking the bubble that kept the water contained.

It was maddening in how frustrating it was, got him wet time after time, and also was one of the most productive exercises he'd done in a long time.

Naruto loved every minute of it.

Hard work and him were old friends. Any amount of effort was acceptable so long as it got him results in the end. Even before the resets he'd worked feverishly hard to master anything put before him. It was not his fault he'd been sabotaged by instructors or outright denied any form of training.

Previously, he'd been forced to go from low level chakra control training, all of the way up to extremely high level, skipping out on all of the steps in between. Knowing the true purpose behind the D-ranks had helped to fill in some of those blanks, but now he was really starting to fill in the mid-ranges in between, and nothing in this world was more satisfying...

...well, except perhaps to see his Angels grow into the most skilled and wonderful people they could be as they did this too.

Actually, they'd triggered off an explosion of growth on their own. Domestic life around the Kitsune compound was getting more varied and interesting as more and more of his Angels started to work on perfecting their domestic skills, doing cooking, sewing, carpentry, metalsmithing, etc as they each started to contribute their own little touches of personality to the amazing works of art that were their home, clothes and meals.

Variety was the spice of life, and the more people helping, the more ideas they had, and the more interesting everything became for all of them!

I I I

Team 7 gathered outside the Forest of Death on the morning of the second stage of their chunin test with some apprehension. It wasn't the test that was making them nervous. No, in fact Anko had begun varying it to such a great degree that it rarely bore much resemblance to itself anymore, as the old way had just gotten too boring.

Today it was to be a race. One person on each team was drugged, and would play 'casualty', while the other two had to haul their teammate's body over some difficult terrain and down a river.

Sounded simple enough, so to make things interesting they'd be hunted over the entire trip by one of the other teams, bent on capturing them. Each team took two trips through the forest, once as hunter, once as prey, with ANBU watching over each part of each test to keep score and ensure no one killed anyone else.

After one of their previous tests where killing was not involved, Tayuya had passed on how Orochimaru had ranted and raved over how he'd hated that part. So, ever since she'd discovered how much it torqued his shorts not to be able to slaughter the genin contestants indiscriminately, Anko had been skipping out on the waivers and running non-lethal tests almost exclusively.

Tayuya took some pleasure in relaying the Snake Sannin's tantrums over this, even going so far as producing her chakra puppets and disguising them as him so she could have them reenact the better parts. That had swiftly degenerated into OVERacting, and now running Orochimaru parodies was one of her unique skills.

Just the other day Tayuya had gotten Tsunade to pee herself, she was laughing so hard over the latest Orochi-parody. The sannin had known her teammate so well, that for his personality to have been utterly captured so completely by his bodyguard's mockery was infinitely hilarious.

Anko could hardly keep a straight face as she told them all the rules. In fact, at one point she couldn't, and had to run off behind a tent to laugh herself silly after having caught a confused look on a certain grass ninja's face - and been unable not to recall the parody play from the night before.

Odd, the disguised Orochimaru thought of her behavior, but in his confusion he did not connect it with one of his bodyguards having nearly broken down in laughter herself earlier that day when he'd done something inconsequential, grabbing something with his tongue that he could not now recall.

It had been a simple thing, but so in-character that she could hardly wait to use it in her next play.

She was honestly thinking of having her chakra-puppets display a case of classic, 'Wow! I use my tongue for everything!' Orochimaru-ness by having one using it to unstop a plugged up toilet, that same gleeful expression of his on its face all the while.

A Jiraiya-puppet flirting with an Orochimaru-puppet in drag would also be on the agenda, Tayuya decided with a smirk. And, to get material to use for the nasty expressions he'd make once he'd learned the truth, the female member of the Sound Four went off to find the Toad Sannin and get him drunk so she could have an Orochimaru-puppet in drag flirt with him.

Art reflects life, after all.

Kin caught sight of her leaving, and Tayuya gave her a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows and a glance towards the disguised Sannin that broke the other Sound girl up laughing right in the middle of Anko's explanation, causing Anko to also catch the eyebrow-waggle and run off to bust a gut chortling herself.

The assembled genin shifted nervously, uncomfortable with not knowing what the joke was.

I I I

Sakura lived for moments like this.

She was on a team with Naruto. None of the other girls were, so during those times when they acted on missions as a team she had him all to herself and could work on him without interruption.

She lived for that.

During these tests they could work together, eat together, sleep near each other, and she could even imagine he was fighting for her when they got into conflicts with other ninja. She knew that was more wishful thinking and hope on her part than actuality - yet, but that 'yet' was worth living for.

He might do it for real someday, love her as much as he did the other girls.

And he couldn't really ignore her. He had to honestly protect her to some degree as if she died on these tests then they reset, and too many resets too soon was too boring. The entire Kitsune clan liked to stretch out the in between times as long as they could.

Sakura herself didn't care much about any of that. Her world was Naruto and making him notice her, and since he never forgot when time reset, she was making progress on her goals whether the resets were long or short.

Of course, everything that made this situation wonderful for Sakura was a minus as far as Naruto was concerned, who was even beginning to question why they'd brought his pink-haired teammate into the resets in the first place.

Oh yeah. To see if she could become a better person. And, because of that, they couldn't turn off the experiment so long as she was making progress, which she was...

Sigh.

No, he had to admit that Sakura was, in every way, becoming a better person. She wasn't fighting with other girls as much, had gotten a hold on her jealousy, and was nowhere near as violent, but... the thing was, she WAS becoming a better person - but there was so Very Far to GO!!!

Shizune had actually hit him below the belt once by comparing her overcoming her bitchiness to him overcoming his ignorance.

Okay, that had been a lot hit. Accurate, but low.

So Team 7 was waiting in some apprehension. Those two factors alone would have been enough, but there was also the fact that Orochimaru and his false Grass team had been sidling up closer and closer, the Snake Sannin having recognized him as the boy to bean him with an apple core, when Anko arrived.

Seeing as she was in 'Test Proctor' mode, the special jonin gave no sign of the familiarity she felt with anyone, either by snuggling up to Naruto's bones or attacking her old teacher.

Instead, the woman who had with relentless practice become a fine actress (along with the rest of Clan Kitsune and their allied retainers) showed up giving no sign that she knew any of them at all. "You and you," she pointed to Sasuke and the disguised Orochimaru, seemingly at random. "You'll be the ones to be drugged for your teams."

Then she gave them a nasty, superior smirk, playing the 'vindictive proctor' role to the hilt. "Unfortunately, we've run out of the oral version, so you'll be forced to take it rectally." Two enema bags slapped them, one each in the chest. "And since I don't care to get my hands dirty, you'll administer it to each other."

Orochimaru's face split into a grin so wide it nearly bisected his face. It probably wasn't possible for anyone to grin wider, and he forgot all about his petty revenge on the apple core boy in thinking about his sudden access to Sasuke's boyish bottom.

The Snake Sannin couldn't decide which made him happier, the opportunity to fondle Sasuke's ass, or having The Uchiha touch his in return.

"Try not to enjoy yourself too much, Sasuke. We all know you don't like girls," Sakura teased, which had the Uchiha pale dramatically and glare at her, while Naruto broke down laughing, as she'd stolen the words out of his own mouth a moment before he could speak them.

Orochimaru's grin, if possible, got dramatically wider. At this point it had to have had something to do with those anatomical jutsu of his, as a grin that wide should not be possible. It clearly wasn't natural.

Anko, in an amazing display of acting prowess, did not reveal one tiny hint of what she was thinking for the moment, simply shooting her thumb in the direction of the nearest tent without the slightest crack in her 'vindictive proctor' facade. "Right, you two lovebirds go off and dose each other. Try not to spend too much time enjoying it or you'll be late for the test."

Casting subtlety aside, Orochimaru picked a suddenly horrified Sasuke up by his tongue and raced off into the tent indicated, all other plots forgotten for the moment.

"NOOOOOOOO!!!!" came a mortified scream a moment later as his pants came flying out the tent flap, only to be drawn back in by a tongue a moment later.

Anko had already joined the two remaining genin of Team 7 in rolling around on the grass in helpless laughter, clutching their guts as they wept tears from their eyes.

The two fake Grass genin stared at each other uncomprehendingly.

I I I

Orochimaru was much mellower when he came out of the tent, dragging Sasuke, who looked bedraggled, humiliated, and somewhat in pain. The hickey on the side of his neck wasn't a cursed seal this time, and he had lipstick on.

He got no sympathy from either of his teammates.

Then the drugs kicked in. They all knew Orochimaru wouldn't be put down by anything they could concoct. His poison resistance was so strong he wouldn't even get a buzz from lakes of booze or the most powerful hallucinogens they could get. So there really wasn't much point in trying. They just gave him the ordinary stuff and made it a rule the drugged teammate couldn't get up.

Of course he'd break that rule. The Snake Sannin wasn't interested in the exam, only Sasuke, and would gleefully disrupt things and break rules. But there wasn't much they could do about it without staging another small war. Not that they were reluctant, since that was how they'd discovered that a Shadow Clone couldn't open any of the Celestial Gates without popping itself. The harm inherent in so doing was enough to vanquish them.

And only Shadow Clones would be going into the forest with him.

Still, Sasuke passed out quite nicely, and Naruto and Sakura loaded him on the backs of their tigers. Both were fully armored in the clan style. Naruto was riding Simba, as usual, while Sakura had been gifted with a tiger for her own use for situations like this one.

Anko had jokingly called it 'Tampon' because it was red, often bloody (as she frequently relied on it during fights) and went between the girl's legs. Sakura had, in a surprising show of meekness, done nothing to fight that name.

That had led to some guilt among the Angels, so it got nicknamed 'Tampy'.

Team 7 allowed themselves to be led to their starting gate around the Forest of Death, then taken away to a small building for last minute instructions where they were traded with Shadow Clones meant to look like them (for all other teams, they would be Shapeshifted to the right forms. Here, they didn't need to, even Sakura had gotten that skill down by now - although the girl suffered a bit. Her chakra reserves had always been small, and all of that was mental energy, she had practically no physical to speak of, so the resets ban on physical development hurt her in the chakra department more than anyone else. So she could only make one, Naruto had to Shift a clone of his own to play her tiger for her - a fact she secretly enjoyed).

All of the teams BUT Orochimaru's were switched like that. It made for a more interesting environment in which to play with the Snake Sannin's mind.

The starting bell sounded and the gates sprang open, sending hundreds of clones and Orochimaru's disguised team racing into the training ground...

... only to find that Naruto's clones had been busy there the previous day, and they'd built a completely accurate scale replica of the Village of Hidden Sound within, based on memories retrieved by the Yamanaka clan techniques out of Kin and Tayuya's experiences there. Or, when that fell short, those two girls used the techniques themselves on Kin's teammates and the other Sound Four. Actually, since Tayuya wasn't bound to the town for the exams, she could (and DID) even take a few trips back to sharpen up their details.

Also, having begun to read the instruction books, Naruto had begun to get a great deal of summoned technology working that other ninja regarded as just junk, and there had been this one movie player, VHS it was called, among that pile of discards with a ton of movies no one else in the elemental countries had ever seen. Including this rather inspiring film called Fantasia.

Orochimaru's team came screeching to a halt when they happened upon the scale model Sound village, populated by dancing hippos and anthropomorphic crocodiles wearing feathered caps and capes, most of them modeled rather distinctly on the ninja of Sound village.

In fact, that one over there, dipping its head to straighten its glasses was doing a classic Kabuto imitation!

The look on Orochimaru's face was priceless!

So much so that Tayuya had to get a picture for use in that night's play.

I I I

Author's Notes:

We've replaced Orochimaru's usual gay porn with Disney comics. Let's see if anyone notices!


	66. Chapter 66

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Six

by Lionheart

I I I

Patience, people. We're in the windup to the Final Reset. But I've learned not to push it.

I I I

Orochimaru didn't want to believe it, but there he was, his two subordinates standing quietly behind him as the Sannin took in the details of a complete and accurate down to the scratches copy of his own private office in Sound. And there, decorating the walls and desk, were maps and papers detailing his invasion plans for Konoha, just as he'd arranged them back in his village.

Konoha was mocking him. Here they had his ENTIRE invasion plan, including those parts he had not bothered to tell his allies, pinned up where he could not help but notice them in a scale model of his own village!

There was even a cup of his own favorite tea sitting on the desk where he frequently left it - and it was still warm.

That looked like a copy of his favorite cup, too.

The whole office was like that. The Snake Sannin could tell this was not his own. Thousands of subtle differences that any ninja could detect, from the pattern of the wood grain to slight smells, to the feel of the atmosphere as the air tended to be heavier and muggier in Rice Country than in Fire.

But this wasn't intended to fool. It was a warning that they knew everything, not only about the invasion plans and his base of operations, but of the tea he liked to drink. Idly, Orochimaru picked up the cup and sampled it, not afraid of any poisons.

It was just the way he liked it, prepared not minutes ago.

Holding this replacement cup, letting it warm his hands, the wondering Sannin took in the astonishing level of details present in this convincing fake. They had even gone to the extent of detailing his private office down to the carpet stains from a subordinate he'd killed last month, a place he'd scratched the desk with a pen, and the scuff marks on one wall where he liked to slither up a concealed chimney.

Orochimaru checked. His supposedly secret escape chimney was there. He did not bother to check where it would go. They knew he had it. That was enough, along with the rest of this detail, to fully convince him they knew where it went, even if that little detail wasn't included in this copy office.

It was also enough to fully convince him that Konoha had somehow been spying on him to a degree that he'd thought impossible - not only for the depth, accuracy and thoroughness of the spying itself, but he'd always been under the impression that Konoha had no spy net worth the name!

Obviously, he'd been mistaken.

The worst sort of spies were those the enemy does not know you have. He had taken advantage of this himself against Konoha, or so he'd thought. But for them to have this level of detail on him when he'd had no clue they even had a spy network worth the name...

Well, now he knew who had been winning those espionage contests, and it had not been him.

He reached under his desk, triggering a secret catch that on his own desk back in Sound released a poisoned kunai into his grasp. To his astonishment, the catch was there, it did work the correct way and a kunai got released into his grasp. Although, instead of the rare poison from Grass (one that had no known antidote, and was quite rare and expensive due to the number of people who died trying to gather it), this one was smeared in maple syrup.

Still, it was the thought that counted. They knew it was there, how the catch worked, and the fact they did not release to him a kunai coated with a rare and terrible poison could almost be seen as mockery, that he was a joke. It would not have been coated in anything had they not known the original was poisoned. They simply chose not to arm him with a deadly weapon.

Basic ninja tools were insignificant to a ninja of his caliber. The kunai meant nothing without that dreadful poison. Having a victim dying in agony over a period of hours due to an incurable toxin was entertaining in ways simply stabbing them with a kunai was not.

Frankly, killing someone with a kunai was more effort than slaying them with the use of some of his impressive store of ninja techniques.

The lack of poison was simply an insult - just like the dancing hippo behind his desk had been. It wasn't like they couldn't have done it accurately, they knew what he looked like and could have left a Disguised clone there. They simply chose not to.

At least they could have made his replacement an alligator.

Contemplating this, Orochimaru was unprepared for when the entire mockup of his village exploded, having been built on a foundation of exploding tags.

As he staggered, injured, out of the crater that had once been a copy of his supposedly secret main base, both his companions dead from the blast, the onlooking sea of orange-clad ninja almost came as a welcome reassurance. It was to be expected for him to be attacked after being revealed like that. It was the way he would've done it himself, were the roles reversed.

Of course, the forest around him being completely orange with the amount of clones perching on branches and crowding the trees was a new one.

Once, in the far gone past, Naruto had come to accept that his trademark charges of massive hordes of Shadow Clones hadn't been any use except to waste a skilled fighter's time. Or, to put it in the words of Kiba who'd been taunting him at the time, "A thousand times nothing is still nothing."

Spurred on by that comment as much as anything, the repeating boy had knuckled down and trained until he was as good as the Ninja Academy could make him.

Then he'd learned that a fighter of Orochimaru's caliber didn't even notice the difference between slaughtering thousands of skilled genin over having slaughtered the same numbers of unskilled berserkers.

However, he'd never tried the mass charges of a few thousand effectively Chunin grade fighters against Orochimaru before.

The massive clone army roared and charged.

From the very first moment Orochimaru knew something was wrong. The second he saw the forest around him was orange with ninja clones he'd swept blood over the seals tattooed onto his arms to summon Manda.

Only nothing happened.

No surge of chakra, no smoke, no fizzle, nothing.

The amazing thing was, with no more evidence than that the Snake Sannin was skilled enough to figure out almost exactly what had occurred. Seals had been placed all around forest to stop Summoning techniques (including most of his snake-based moves, as he didn't have those serpents concealed under his sleeves or down his throat most of the time).

He learned almost immediately afterwards that the same kind of thing was also in place to stop Body Switches or Flickers, as his very next trick was to try to Flicker out of there, and that failed in the very same way.

It took less than half a second for the Sannin to perform both tests, and in that moment discern that this was an assassination attempt. They'd only built that village because they'd wanted to mock him before he died - just as he was planning to do to his old teacher Sarutobi, crushing all his hopes and dreams so he could watch them die in his eyes before finishing him off.

Only Orochimaru had no intention of going down himself so easily.

His first attempt was the by-now expected Great Breakthrough technique, a Wind jutsu that Orochimaru could and had used before to level trees in a wide cone before him, tearing up everything in its path, aimed at taking out a large chunk of the onrushing clones to grant him room to maneuver.

Naruto actually countered that one, unraveling the jutsu before it could even form. Countering techniques was not done well or often by most ninja, as it required both a knowledge ahead of time of what technique the other guy was using (a foreknowledge most often possessed only by Sharingan users - or Time Loopers), but also complete mastery of that technique yourself (which was something almost no Sharingan users could be bothered learning).

Still smoking from the explosion he'd been through, and that Naruto's clones had been at a sufficient distance to avoid, Orochimaru was nevertheless impressed. To see a successful counter to one of your techniques was one of the warning signs you were up against a real pro.

There were several ranks of ninja for a reason.

Genin weren't too tough. Even so, they had some rather distinct advantages over an ordinary civilian; and though they did not know many chakra fueled techniques, the basic academy set could be devastating if used well.

Still, very few genin fought at precisely the same level, just as you wouldn't expect to walk into a math class, say Algebra, and find that all students there had the same grades, despite being technically on the same level by virtue of being at the same rank of math.

Some would be better, some worse, and most would find some parts easier than others. It was the way of human nature, the way of existence. You could group people however you wanted, but you couldn't force them to be exactly the same, not even if you were specifically trying.

So to speak of a 'High Genin' or 'Low Chunin' was a perfectly accurate way of describing the situation. Even a guy failing Trig knew more math than the one getting an A in Remedial Arithmetic. But the guy with an A was farther ahead than the ones getting Cs or Ds in the same class, just like the guy failing Trig was behind those passing his course.

Also people progressed through those grades. Someone on their first week of Geometry wasn't going to have all the same knowledge as a student taking their last week of that same course. People starting out were not going to be as good at what they were doing as people who'd been doing it for a while.

If they didn't progress, you couldn't promote them to new grades. Your best Chunin are the only place to look when it's time to recruit new Jonin.

Also, there were different things to be measured, and your grades in math didn't necessarily do anything for you if you were failing English. Or you might be in grade school yet have a college level reading ability. It happens. So your Chunin level ninja might have Academy level illusion skills, or your genin might be such a prodigy at close combat that he could match or beat most jonin.

However, just as you'd expect a Calculus student to be further along on math than the guys in Algebra, certain broad categories did exist and were helpful in their way, and most genin could beat up most civilians.

Chunin and Jonin were tougher still, each leagues above the rank below them. But that path of progression was fairly well known and described by now, just more of what made the genin different than an ordinary human.

But the kages and S-class criminals all had something to separate them from the rest of the ninja population, and it wasn't something so simple as a jutsu or bloodline. The lower ranks had those in plenty.

No, what really separated an S-class ninja from the rest of the herd was certain unique skills, like countering others techniques, and including their almost universal ability to multitask, to do more than one thing at the same time; whether that be to fight and use jutsu at the same time, or to mix different elemental techniques, casting them at the same moment, there was always something special there placing them above the rest.

A jonin like Kakashi or Gai could beat you down or fry your bones with jutsu, but they typically had a gap between doing either, even if that was only the pause in mid-jump (and only the better ones could manage that). Naruto had not forgotten how Kakashi fought Zabuza - standing there, feet set in a wide stance that allowed him to focus his concentration on doing a long set of handseals. He could fight, OR he could use jutsu, but not both at the same time. He even had to take a moment out to pause to power up his trademark Thousand Birds. Only then, once it was active, could he charge into combat maintaining it - and even so, he'd demanded a bloodline to keep him accurate.

A genin cast his jutsu in mostly the same way.

There was no substantial difference between Kakashi standing there frozen in a stance working handseals or Shikamaru doing the same. The basics were identical. And though one could argue that Kakashi had more experience he wasn't even substantially faster than the lazy genin, when said lazy genin actually chose to perform them.

But you go after a kage and you're likely to discover he can fling two jutsu at the same time. Not just one after another done fast, but invoked At The Same Moment! Like a man fighting with two weapons could launch attacks from two completely different directions in the same instant. Sarutobi, and Orochimaru like him, could stand there flinging four or five jutsu at the same time, if they felt particularly pressed in combat. It ate chakra like nobody's business, so they performed it rarely, but they could both do it.

Naruto understood that doing your jutsu without seals was a precursor to that jaw-dropping ability. And it wasn't something a Sharingan could copy. If it could, every Uchiha in existence would've had that capability.

But Kakashi demonstrably did not have it, and if anyone had made a name out of stealing techniques and abilities, he had. He'd also hung around people who could do it for a substantial portion of his life, and he'd never failed to steal anything he'd liked before.

Heck, the jonin had no shame, even stealing Lee's fighting style to teach to his butt-sucking toady, when Lee was an allied ninja, and his fighting arts were literally all he'd had.

You steal from an ally and take all he has... no one can claim honor in that. It was as low as one could go, and did a real injury to the victim's life goals of proving that hard work mattered, sneering in his face as you proved they did not, that hard work only produced something for a lazy genius to consume.

That wasn't just an injury, it was also insulting. And you don't go injuring and insulting allies if you ever expect to keep them.

No, Crackashi was sure the hard worker was insignificant and didn't matter, and that attitude had found its perfect match in Sasuke, who felt sure that no one else was as significant as he, and that only he mattered in the end.

Tsunade was right. The Uchiha heir was an outright danger to Konoha, and his proud but lazy teacher doting on him only made things worse.

However, at the moment, Naruto had a fight to devote his attention to.

Orochimaru's Earth Rampart was something of an expected move against the literal hail of senbon and kunai the onrushing clones had sent in ahead of them. That the Snake Sannin rode his giant wall high above the actual ground level, granting him a bird's eye view of the field was also pretty standard.

That was why it came as so sweet a surprise to see the look on his face as that massive defense transformed into mud underneath him, dropping the Sannin from a height of several hundred feet, the mud too gooey to stick to as it itself collapsed and brought him down.

Orochimaru came down hard because he couldn't Flicker out of there, nor did it help to walk on mud blocks that were falling themselves. He got back up in record speed, but by that time the wall of onrushing clones had reached him and suddenly it was all knives and swords and rapid tail strikes on all sides.

Most fighting styles start with a couple of good ideas put into application by someone who used them, learned how to apply them well, and ironed out their weaknesses, then taught them to others. Those styles grew and changed and matured over generations as more got added, older parts released from use or forgotten, and new parts explored. Through this process, some arts grew weaker as demands lessened or masters grew more concerned with artistic movements instead of effective ones; or the attrition of combat sharpened that art by exposure into far more deadly forms.

A martial art was distilled combat experience, refined and explored, and the more combat experience you got the more deadly your art could eventually be - and the Kitsune clan had been neck deep in combat for so long it was a bit hard to remember what peace was like, when you weren't expecting an invasion anytime soon.

And, unlike most arts, the masters developing this one could correct for failure in unheard of ways. A lot of potential combat learning was lost due to defeats that render you unable to record what you'd learned, and the Kitsune did not currently have that problem. They could correct for fatal mistakes in ways no one else could dream of, and through that course take risks no one else would contemplate, trying out experiments no others would dare.

The Kitsune Clan art had begun with some great ideas, borrowed even more, and then been sharpened in combat against a wide variety of ninja, including some truly awesome foes, as Tenten refined it until it was really quite scary. But she still only viewed it as half an art.

The other half they would have to develop only after gaining stronger bodies. Lee and Gai both helped, but they didn't have the Kitsune bloodline and its modifications to their bodies that the art was designed to take advantage of. So, while they could help project out some of those moves, plot for what improvements to make down the line, and refine higher forms than Tenten or the girls could presently practice, the real art itself couldn't develop any more useful ability until the clan members had stronger bodies, able to take advantage of higher level techniques or more demanding forms.

Of course, Kitsune Style was already a large and complex art.

Most styles were constrained to a bare few core skills they could afford to teach to all members. But, given their time loop, that was not a problem for Clan Kitsune's current members (who had nearly infinite time to practice in). And, given Naruto's training illusions, that was not a problem they expected to have for their kids, either. So it could afford to be a large art, with many moves and options. And, oddly enough, that made it unpredictable, which was somehow fitting for a clan based on the traits of a trickster.

Whether that trickster was Naruto or the fox was open to debate, however.

No, really, the time had come to graduate their family style and admit that it had already emerged as a fully developed martial art. And what better way to do that than face off against Orochimaru using it?

Alone, without any ninja tools or support, no allies, no summons and deprived of some of his favorite techniques, Orochimaru was as vulnerable as he was ever going to be. Combined, those were almost as much of a handicap for him as being without an arm would've been.

A perfect baptism of fire to stress test the new Kitsune clan art.

Those disadvantages wouldn't be enough to transform it into a fully martial arts battle, as no serious ninja fight was ever truly a martial arts battle. They had too many additional tricks. One side or the other would always mix in whatever would grant them an advantage. But a martial art that couldn't cope with ninja techniques wasn't suitable for use by ninja.

No, the perfect ninja martial art was one that could flawlessly incorporate as many of those as possible while maintaining its close combat edge.

However, all Naruto was hoping to achieve here was any kind of martial arts exchange at all. Mostly the Sannin would just tear him to shreds with his vast arsenal of ninja and elemental techniques. Or, if the blond was doing REALLY well, slash him apart with a sword. But being chopped to bits by something that could carve up just about anything wasn't a true test of skill.

The Snake Sannin's style all those times Naruto had waged ninja war against him in that forest had been based on high mobility as much as techniques of vast destruction. So for Orochimaru to fight without the use of his sword, rapid changes of location on the battlefield, or any of his summons, small or large, was a significant handicap.

Yes, he could adapt. But, no, he wouldn't be at his best; nor were any of his usual surprise tricks the least bit surprising to the boy whose thousands of clones descended upon him in a giant orange tide.

And, to add insult on top of the injuries he'd already suffered, Orochimaru found their fight being accompanied by the William Tell Overture!

The Sannin struck out lightning-fast, far quicker than Naruto could ever expect to go during these loops, and stuck his hand through a clone's head only to learn that particular clone was an illusion - just as two others were stabbing at his unprotected back and flanks.

Orochimaru cut their heads off with his tongue, then got cross-eyed as the lightning jutsu contained in their flesh grounded through his tongue into the Sannin's brain.

Electrical Aura Armor was obvious, and an obvious defense would be avoided. But Naruto had learned the Thunder Punch technique for charging one's fists or weapons with an electrical charge long ago, and it wasn't MUCH of a modification to charge his neck instead - and that was one of the Sannin's favorite targets.

Of course, that didn't do much other than short his brain just long enough for a hail of kunai to come down, all trailing ninja wires and exploding tags.

The explosion was a truly withering fireball that lit up the forest all around, and the lighting coursing down those wires as it went off made it doubly entertaining, as the electrical attacks reached the Sannin before burning off.

This was a many tiered assault, with front ranks of Naruto clones rushing in and out to engage in combat, back off or reinforce as needed, then others standing behind those to launch distance attacks, either massed thrown weapons ala Tenten, or ninja techniques.

Seeing as how Anko was the one who'd taught Naruto the importance of ninja tools, and he figured she was likely to have learned something of that from her teacher, one of the many Narutos who were not directly engaging him in combat used his Naked in Public technique (real version) on Orochimaru to disintegrate his clothes, and with them his many secret pockets, depriving him of useful tools, hidden weapons or other surprises - as it also ripped the shed skin disguise off, the blonde boy noted that his enemy's current body was female (something that not even the Sound Four had been informed of).

Interesting. He'd puzzled out from watching Sarutobi's fights against him that the Snake Sannin was jumping around possessing bodies as his form of immortality, but he'd somehow missed that detail. He'd have to figure out a prank to base off of it later.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Hi All! Sorry about the wait. Someone to whom I owe countless favors insisted that I study up on a game system that I absolutely despise (Shadowrun, 4th Ed), in preparation of running a campaign of it.

Yeck!

Anyway, as I loyally studied up on that the very act of filling up on it shut me down as a writer, turning off my gift. But, thankfully, the proposed game fell through and didn't happen.

Still, it's taken me weeks to recover from that. This was the first time in a long while that I was sitting down to work on this without feeling strangled in the attempt. So, nobody's fault, but I was away for a while. Sorry!

Oh, and when I was a grade-schooler I had a college level reading ability. 


	67. Chapter 67

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Seven

by Lionheart

I I I

Orochimaru had one distinct advantage over anyone else fighting against someone using the Clan Kitsune style. He himself had developed for his own use the body stretching techniques that made their tail strikes so flexible and deadly, so they were less unpredictable to him, and easier to avoid.

Still, the fundamental principle of the style still applied: most people had two hands, so could only cope with using two weapons at once, so their training only applied to countering two. The third came in almost unopposed.

Then again, Orochimaru was one of the Sannin. He'd fought outnumbered against multiple opponents before. It was expected at his rank, and there was not much difference between dodging three strikes from three people or three strikes all from one foe.

Then again, nine strikes simultaneously from three people was a bit much to ask, and the Snake Sannin kept having trouble trying. There is only so much data the mind can process at once, and too much can overload it. That's one of the best benefits of training, any familiar situation requires very little in the way of mental processing power to cope with. So a person who has fought against double weapon styles or multiple opponents in training was not going to freeze up facing those in real life situations. He may not win, but he stands a better chance.

On the other hand, dealing with the strange or unusual, the unexpected or stuff you hadn't encountered before often leads to "Huh? What?" moments that can get even veteran ninja killed.

Surprise was deadly, and being unprepared for something was almost a guarantee of getting slaughtered by it on the first few encounters.

So it was with Orochimaru. He'd trained under the best instructor the village of Konoha had ever seen. He'd faced, both in training and in combat, most everything that the ninja of the elemental nations could throw at him. But it had not included this, and that meant the first couple of strikes went through despite his impressive defenses.

Of course, Orochimaru had a freakish damage tolerance, able to stand up and fight on after at least ten minutes of brutal pounding by Tsunade going at full strength. Most ninja would be paste after such an experience, heck most would be gone after the first blow. He was merely wobbly after minutes of her punching him in the face.

Such a ninja did not go down easily, and he had that ability to repair all damage by shedding his skin. Naruto had even gotten lucky one or twice and cut off the Snake Sannin's head, only to have a whole, new, unblemished Orochimaru jump out of the old one's mouth before the decapitated body hit the floor.

So he wasn't going to be stopped by anything so simple as a Thousand Birds or two to the face, or a Spiraling Sphere to the gut, or even Lightning Whips cutting off all of his limbs.

Orochimaru only put up with this for a moment before the sannin grinned and exploded like a shrapnel bomb into millions of little snake darts, flying in every direction acting like a million poisoned senbon, each one bearing a tiny little Orochimaru face over bared and glistening fangs.

The nearest Naruto clones, alerted by their whiskers to the impending blast, all flew into Heavenly Spin techniques, shredding the snake darts that came towards them using the Hyuga's ultimate defense. Others, in the next few ranks, having a little more warning let fly with withering return blasts of fire, wind and lightning jutsu, burning through countless little Orochi-snakes. Still a few dozen or couple hundred, an insignificant fraction of the whole of them, burst free of the radius of the counterstrikes and went wriggling off through the brush in all directions, some leaping in the ears of forest animals and possessing them, turning back into full size, half-beast clones of Orochimaru that returned to combat the Naruto clones that hunted the rest of them.

"We haven't seen that one before," Ino commented to her friends as all the Angels watched this fight from a safe distance.

"It's almost certainly a desperation technique," Tsunade observed. "If it follows the normal pattern for those he can probably only pull it off once without meeting some significant recharge requirement. So he'd not pull it out unless in cases like this, when his life is actually at stake. He couldn't keep shedding his skin forever. That's got to take chakra."

"Was his life actually at stake?" Tenten questioned. "Orochimaru's beaten Naruto countless times before."

"What I want to know is where he got that technique," Yugao observed.

"Probably invented it himself, as one of his many attempts at immortality, then kept it on as a useful desperation technique." Tsunade scowled, still watching the fight through her glasses. "What I want to know is: are all those millions of him real?"

"If he created this as an offshoot of his immortality research, they might be," Anko commented unhappily. "He'd want real copies of him to continue on. But he wouldn't be happy about having to share power with millions of other identical clones of himself. So he wouldn't use it lightly."

"Certain people just don't know how to share power," Hana disapproved.

"Once more the sannin gets away," Tayuya breathed regretfully, lowering her binoculars.

"He's not clear yet," Anko growled, still looking through hers.

"Why would you think Naruto doesn't have him?" Hinata wondered.

"Something Naruto taught me once, long ago," Tenten answered for the other girls. "Force concentration. He explained that my abilities with thrown weapons and his clone making were capable of acting in concert to be much greater than either one alone, that I could only throw so many weapons and that he could only crowd so many clones into fist range, but that together a mob of clones throwing weapons delivered far more force than either of our signature moves could do separately. A moment ago, Naruto was focusing the close, mid and long ranged fighting efforts of four thousand clones onto a single target, and Orochimaru was weakening, getting beaten severely. But now the sannin has split them up, forced them to divide their efforts. So it is no longer so uneven a deal."

"Hmm," The animated body of Zabuza grunted. "It is the difference between my hitting a foe with the flat of my blade versus the edge. The one will bruise him up, the other cut him in half. It is the same blow, but the edge delivers a lot more concentrated force."

But Orochimaru was not in the clear yet, as there were just as many Narutos hunting him as there were Orochimarus trying to escape. The technique did deprive Naruto of the ability to focus all of his power directed on the Sannin, but that didn't make escape easy.

One of the Mini-Orochimarus had leapt into the body of a bear, and just as it was finished reforming into his own body one of Naruto's clones stepped up, this one wearing head to toe black armor along with a flowing black cape.

Then Naruto activated a weapon he'd gone to some lengths to retrieve. Just as the blade of lightning formed above the hilt, he spoke deeply through the breath mask built into his stylize faceplate, "I've been waiting for you Snake Sannin. We meet again, at last. The circuit is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master."

I I I

Things were bustling at the Uchiha estate, as what with all of the work that had been done in the Forest of Death, building the replica of Sound Village there, they had been forced to put off transforming the property into the Kitsune Clan Compound, and were eager to catch up on their work.

So it was that clones were running everywhere over the property, getting things put together, tearing down buildings they didn't want, or that needed to be reformed in a manner better suited to their style of living.

The tech summoning experiments were going well. And, in spite of time being exactly the same for them each reset, Naruto had found (to his and others' massive frustration) that even in a perfect loop, doing things exactly the same way each time, he could not be guaranteed of getting the same tech each time he tried to.

Heck, the people who were NOT in the reset, those summoning experts in the town, weren't getting the same things each reset, and they COULDN'T vary their methods, because the time loops wouldn't let them!

This had led to speculation as to what was the problem - and their best guess so far was that this art, summoning as it did tech from other universes, was reaching out for places beyond the scope of the resets, where time was not frozen. So each time they posed the problem, they got a different answer.

It was like a fisherman frozen through time, repeating the same actions as he came to the pond, baited his hook, and made the cast, but because the fish in the pond were not frozen in time, what he caught was different.

It also solved resoundingly several longstanding questions concerning the practice of summoning technology, and why it was so hard to control. And the answer was that not all of the variables were controlled by the seals they'd been using. Some of it was on the other end.

If you stand a blindfolded man on a boat and have him fire an arrow, even if he has perfect control of his stance, the tension on the string, the release, and the angle of his shot, his aim will be off if the boat is moving and rocking about, because he can't see to compensate for all that motion.

Having no idea about the specifics, or whereabouts, of the universes they were summoning things out from, what they got, or if they got anything, was randomized by factors beyond their control.

However, it did land them some excellent movies, including that one series called Star Wars, that no one else had seen before. And that amount of newness and randomness was contributing relief to everyone's lives.

And an amusing prank or two on Orochimaru.

There was also a certain amount of behind the scenes prep work going on for the ongoing plots and pranks and battle against Orochimaru, and for that one clone had shapeshifted himself into a copy of Sasuke Uchiha, to serve as bait to a later trap for the Sannin.

Now one thing here that must be understood: with so many of them aware of the resets, a certain amount of variableness had crept in to life. It was not that those unaware of the loops changed what they were doing without help, but with so many people who were aware out there doing things, small cues kept getting given to everyone else that did sometimes lead to different actions cropping up, seemingly out of nowhere.

For one example, there was a fairly consistent case of if someone bought groceries on the day of moving into the Uchiha estate, through a complicated series of events and rumors, they would draw Sasuke Uchiha to the estate to whine and complain about them vandalizing it, making an increasing fuss, and even trying to get ANBU summoned to throw them out if not dealt with promptly.

Since purchasing groceries was a difficult thing to avoid, as no one had enough food in their cupboards to feed as large a group as they'd become, and other events got set into motion if they all visited restaurants, having Sasuke around the estates on the first day making a pill of himself was becoming an increasingly common nuisance.

It was something they were still seeking a good way to avoid.

However, in a world without consequences it was always easy to knock him out and hide the body, or erase his memory so no one got stuck with the duty of impersonating the Amazing Walking Ego.

Still, seeing Anko rush at him with a Thousand Birds around one fist (Anko had a very flexible definition of 'knocking out' when it came to the Uchiha) the clone who was impersonating Sasuke, dodged backwards, without even thinking about it, the shadow clone activating his Sharingan as he did so purely by reflex.

Then the clone paused, stunned, and Anko nailed him with the Thousand Birds right between the eyes, an action which brought the whole clone work force to a halt as the memories of that clone hit them. Suddenly dozens of them shapeshifted in the dread Uchiha Emo-Pants, and were activating Sharingans.

This was odd enough that Anko figured out what had happened almost immediately, and thus didn't go about slaughtering them all.

"What is it?" Hinata asked, flustered at the odd happenstance of the Naruto she was talking to suddenly dropping the conversation to turn into the Uchiha (Ugh!) and stare about with an activated Sharingan.

"Two things," the boy replied to his most beloved (although he didn't hug her while transformed into an Uchiha as that would be too creepy), "One is, for the very first time since transplanting a sharingan so long ago, I tried to shapeshift one, and it worked beyond my expectations - I have a functional set of copy wheel eyes in this form."

Hinata pondered a moment whether this was a good or bad thing, as she rather liked their normal eyes, and they could always steal Sasuke's whenever they wanted to memorize something. It wasn't like they had a better use for the pooh-weilder.

"And the other thing is that," the boy pointed to one of the many fans decorating the former Uchiha compound - decorations they'd always taken care to tear down on the first day of rebuilding. Indeed, half were already gone, cleared away for the Kitsune Compound construction project.

Seeing it was just a normal fan, she presumed something deeper, activating her own White Eyes to check. "I don't understand," she replied. "There is a slash across it, covered by a permanent illusion seal. But why?"

"All of the fans have a different slash, among those I've seen." Naruto calmly replied. "But those aren't random, they are strokes of an incomplete sealing array, scattered across the Uchiha clan fan decorations."

Hinata pondered this for a moment, before coming to an answer. "The Uchiha clan library! They'd want to hide it so only they could find it! And what makes them unique?"

"The Sharingan," Naruto confirmed, nodding with a grin. "So they set up a puzzle that only an active Sharingan could solve, as a test for anyone who wanted to get into their library. First, you had to see through the illusions over those concealed marks, but the Hyugas could also do that..."

"So they split up the code among many such illusions," Hinata blurted for him. "To require the Sharingan's ability to memorize!" She now quoted from her own burgeoning education on sealing, "Seals are such tricky things that you can't afford to get one 'close enough', it has to be done just right. So the precise marks and their relations to each other, scattered across so many fans, would be all but impossible for anyone but an Uchiha to put together right."

Naruto smirked, folding his arms. "And Kakashi, who was the only one who could have discovered this riddle, didn't because for one he never comes out here, and for the fact that he always keeps his eye covered."

Hinata was already mumbling. "But, if the key is a seal, that would mean that their library is hidden inside of a giant storage seal somewhere, and this key would provide access, like a summoning jutsu, only reversed! You'd have to call yourself in to it... or call the books out, I suppose."

The boy reverted back to his native form and hugged the girl. "That's right! And because I didn't know anything about seals those first few times I tore this place down to the bedrock, I had no idea what I was looking for! They're probably carved between layers on some floor someplace, and I just never knew what to check for the first couple of times, and 'just knew' there was nothing there ever since!"

"This means we get the Uchiha clan library!" she enthused, kissing the boy she loved while hugging him back.

His clones were already at work reconstructing the Kaleidoscope seals that offered access to the giant and mysterious library, assembling the strokes from the various remaining fan symbols around the compound - only to find that despite the redundancy put in by the Uchiha to keep the scheme viable in spite of expected battle damage, that they'd already destroyed enough of those fan symbols during the early stages of the reconstruction to make that impossible - this reset.

I I I

The Original Naruto pulled on the sleeves of his ornate silk kimono, poorly fit and badly tailored by his estimate, still it fit the standards of the Fire Lord's court, where he was presently standing, waiting to be introduced.

It was a fairly straightforward act on his part - play up his tailoring ability enough and the Fire Lord wanted him withdrawn as a ninja so he could be engaged to one of his many daughters.

Well, you don't do that to some country bumpkin without giving him some instruction on how to behave at court functions. The tailor may be a simple tradesman, less than a farmer, someone you'd always want to keep hidden in the back somewhere making those excellent clothes you'd snagged him for, but if he's to marry your daughter that still elevates him to the samurai class, and he's got to know how to behave decently.

So, instead of spending all his time running away from the Fire Lord's troops, this time he was embracing that instruction.

Now when this happened before it had always come as a surprise to Naruto, to have the local lord's retainers descending on the ninja village to say, 'Him! That boy there! The Fire Lord requires his service!' And consequently he'd been drummed out of the active service ninja corps and the reset came.

Now? Well, it was different when a humble boy approached the palace and applied for the position of the Lord's tailor. Then he didn't have to send his retainers to go collect you, and consequently they did not even know they needed to have you removed from the active duty ninja roster.

So, while his clones were off making thing happen in Konoha, the real Naruto could go get some education about the royal court. And so long as it was more than a month, a week, and a day before the wedding ceremony, he'd probably never even have to see the ugly girl he was engaged to.

In the meantime, he could be learning court etiquette and how to comport himself among their samurai lords. And, well, if he came back and used that information later, on another reset, he could truly start to master the delicate art of politics that went on there.

And sooner or later, he'd learn how to get someone to teach him the samurai fighting arts, whether they wanted to or not. If they would not teach a poor and humble tailor, how about a more well mannered cook? Or a slightly more refined masseur? Or a downright sophisticated weaponsmith?

He had LOADS of skills this court had tried to recruit him over, and would be learning their manners, habits and peculiar court culture more and more each reset. A month of learning here, a month there, and pretty soon they'd take him for one of them.

And even if they only started to teach their backwards country cousin, fallen into poverty, a few moves here or there, that would build until he was not so poor at fighting or backward in his skills until he could pass as merely not so well taught, and a refinement or two could be wheedled out to suit the lord's future son-in-law... No, it would not be long until he had full samurai training.

They might not ever teach their best secrets to him, but they'd show him the basics. Even Konoha gave that much ninja training to descendants of their enemies, or missing ninja.

As for the monks? Well, most of them were retired samurai, weren't they?

I I I

With the size of the Forest of Death and the number of Orochimaru's loose in it, it was inevitable that some of the micro-sannins escape. Once out past the boundary fence, it once again became possible for him to Body Flicker and summon.

Manda made an attack upon Konoha in that very instant.

Before anyone could react the office of the Hokage fell under the assault of dozens of Orochimarus who overwhelmed the guards and slaughtered the Third, wasting no time in mocking or isolating him as they were too busy competing with each other over who got to kill him and claim the prize in an unofficial contest - the Orochimaru to kill the Third got to rule the others.

Naturally, none of the Orochimarus kept their agreements with the winner, and the town of Konoha was badly damaged before the Konoha ninja chased the last one out. But mysteriously the chunin exams did not get called off.

Apparently the town council was too busy passing new laws and increasing their power to even consider official ninja business like electing a new Hokage or calling off the exams.

Naruto watched grimly and made sure to memorize all the new laws.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Orochimaru has been obsessed with collecting ninjutsu for, well, forever. To my mind that means he's acquired some. And since we are shown others using or preparing to use suicide techniques, well, he would know some of those as well. He wouldn't be exactly excited about using them, but once he finds himself in a no-win scenario, he'd have them available to pull out.

Also, there are many failures for every success in seeking after anything so elusive as immortality. A genius, which we are told the Snake Sannin is, would have found a way to turn some of those failures into a provisional success.

The specific failed immortality/suicide technique he used in this chapter is based on the fact that the body, any body, has the material to replicate itself millions of times. This material is based in the reproductive organs, and both boys and girls have their version. So, well, possess that and suddenly there are millions of potential copies of you running about.

The drawback is those copies are permanent, and some people do not know how to share power. Actually, there aren't many people who'd do well with a million identical siblings hanging around. But selfish egotists would find it more difficult than most to adapt.

Still, you've got to admit that not even Clan Kitsune would be prepared to deal with hundreds of Orochimarus suddenly running over the place. Of course they spent more time killing each other than anything else...

Oh, and I suppose I really ought to explain the shapeshifted sharingan. Nah! I'll do that next chapter. 


	68. Chapter 68

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Eight

by Lionheart

I I I

I am surprised more people didn't notice the obvious Darth Vader reference in the last chapter.

I I I

"Seriously," Naruto reported. "Sarutobi dies in almost every reset we don't go to extreme lengths to save him. But this is the first time we've seen what the aftermath of that is - and it's all a power grab by those old advisors of his and the civilian members of the council. Scary people."

Naruto shook his head as he looked over his copies of the new laws, "And it's obvious they've been waiting for him to kick the bucket for a LONG time, just so they could pull some of this stuff in his absence. The Third Hokage put in his two teammates back from his genin days as his advisors, and they've opposed him on virtually every issue since, longer than I've been alive."

The boy sighed, leaning back and tossing his hands behind his head. "But the scary thing is, just like a ninja gets experience fighting in the field, and if he survives gets more dangerous, these two have built up nearly a century of political maneuvering and backbiting. My sponsor in the Fire Lord's court was careful to point out to me that the older a successful politician, the more scary and dangerous he was. And these two advisors are as old as Sarutobi. Not only that, they've been in politics as long as he was. The only person with their experience who felt like opposing them was the Third Hokage himself. None of their other rivals has anyplace close to their skill. And that plus their wrongheaded ideas is a real problem."

"So what are the old bats up to?" Anko drawled, leaning on a sofa arm while eating dango off a stick.

It was back to clan conference time, so everybody had gathered around.

"Well," the boy considered, lifting papers left and right, "Let me put it this way: they've been opposed to you being ninja since Orochimaru defected, and me since I was born, have advocated our deaths as untrustworthy elements, are total Sasuke fangirls, and really love that old war-hawk Danzo. They'd like to turn this place, together with him, into another Bloody Village like Mist. It really ticked them off that Sarutobi preferred peaceful solutions."

He palmed his face and started rubbing it with his hands to get the stress out. "Basically, if Sarutobi wanted one thing, these guys are pressing for the total opposite in every department, and always have; which scares me as the Third Hokage has led us longer than all other Hokages combined and we're still around and near the top of our heap, so he must be doing something right. I'd be more worried if the Fire Lord was listening to the embassy these guys have sent to his court. But so far he has them cooling their heels."

The boy leaned on an arm, picking up one of the law papers to limply drop it back on the desk. "The council has always been a nuisance to the Hokage, but Sarutobi tolerated that. Only it's never been as powerful as these two are making it since he died. Between their near-century of experience and these new laws they're passing, they'd steamroller any new replacement Hokage. Also, this guy Danzo scares me. I never cared about politics before, but he has these two advisors in his pocket, and more political maneuvering behind the scenes than most guys would know what to do with. He's dangerous, and he's got his own private army to back him up that nobody knew about til now - and keeping secrets that large in a ninja village speaks of scary ability."

Tsunade nodded. "I've run into him before. Once, back in the day, he basically wanted me to sign over all voting rights of my clan to him - and our lands and everything else as well. He's tried direct action, bribery (give him my clan's wealth and influence and he'd work to ensure my liberty) and even trying to force through arranged marriages to a selection of his cronies."

Seeing she had the stunned views of the clan on her, including her original apprentice Shizune, the sannin simply shrugged. "He's made closer to thirty attempts than three, everything from getting me drunk so they could try to get me laid, to more romantic efforts. None of them even got close before I pounded his latest Romeo into the dust. But lately when I've been working on reconstructing limbs and repairing old battle damage for improving the lives of Konoha's retired ninja he wanted the techniques used only on him, and the sycophants of his he chose to reward."

The legendary medic gave a tired smile over to Tayuya, who glowed, having just gained official medic status in the clan's eyes after developing a Bone Regeneration technique based on her study of Kimimaro's bloodline ability to grow and manipulate the bones in his body. It wasn't a full bloodline theft, not yet anyway, but it already had massive medical application, resolving a long term weakness of the ninja medical arts. Heck, already it could restore considerable strength to old bodies, making the bones tough and strong again reduced some of the frailties of old age. By no means all, there was organ damage and things, but it did much.

They were planning to try it out on Sarutobi the next couple of resets to see how much, because not only should it have significant impact on improving the guy's quality of life, but it ought to make him significantly harder to kill when next Orochimaru came around hunting him if Sarutobi wasn't physically weaker than a genin.

At this point they were planning to use it on Danzo and the two advisors - NEVER! But no one knew how to refuse Sarutobi if he insisted. Probably, if they couldn't give the treatment to him without withholding it from those cretins, they'd stop giving it to the Hokage.

Not strengthening their enemies was a big deal to the Kitsune Clan.

Shizune whistled, impressed with the man's audacity. "If he could control the techniques we've been working on he'd have every retired or disabled ninja in his pockets, willing to do anything for him to acquire your services. He'd own this town in short order."

Tsunade nodded soberly. "Whereas if I tried the same arm-twisting tactics as he would, trying to force influence by controlling my own treatments, he'd have me hauled before the council for breaking the same power-mongering statutes it turns out he's been flouting with that private army of his. Only he somehow manages to get away with it, and I wouldn't."

Naruto slumped, holding his chin in his hands and frowning. "And Sarutobi dies in almost every reset. Even if we save him from that he's still old. He's going to die sometime, and it looks like these guys will outlast him. So we're looking at the future of Konoha here in what they want to do to it."

The clan shuddered. That was scary!

Naruto sighed, picking himself up and making a thousand clones. "Alright guys! Go read the laws of this village! ALL OF THEM! Let's see if we can get some kind of legal basis to stop these guys' takeover. I don't fancy fighting the ninja of our own village just to save it from a few power mad old fogies!"

"Right!!" The clones shouted, flickering off to a collection of old dusty record collections and libraries, trying to sound more excited than they felt about it.

"So how did you end up shapeshifting a sharingan?" Ino pressed, changing the subject to one she found more interesting.

"I'd guess it's since the sharingan was a part of his body, even for a short time, he has experience using it, thus he knows how it should work, and thus he might've subconsciously found a way for his shapeshift to make it functional." Shizune speculated.

"Very much like when you had to eat rabbits to learn how to turn into one," the Kyubi agreed. "You can't truly take ANY form, you have to have some connection, an innate understanding of how that form works, if you will."

"So, when I transplanted the sharingan long ago," Naruto wondered out loud.

"Your body's regeneration would have gone to work trying to integrate it," the fox spirit answered, yawning. "And that would have put you on the path to memorizing how it works, for later copying of it. But I'm surprised you got it out of a simple transplant, unless you had it for months. Usually it takes more information than that."

"Now I understand it!" the boy cried aloud, smacking his fist into his palm. "For I dunno how long afterwards, I had all these cravings to have and use a sharingan again! It was almost uncontrollable! It was all I could do NOT to run out and knock Kakashi or Sasuke over the head to steal theirs again! I put that down to the sharingan being addictive."

"It might be." The demoness yawned once again. "But I can also see your foxy nature wanting more familiarity with those eyes so it could copy the bloodline powers without the extra years of piecing the functions together from incomplete information."

"Still," she shifted in place to find a more comfortable spot on her cushion, "You should experiment to see if you can learn to just shift the eyes and relevant parts, or if you'll always have to shift your entire body."

"Sharingan!" Naruto activated the eyes, then looked down on himself, grinning goofily as he saw his own body there.

Then his face went slack and he stated drooling, body falling limp.

"NARUTO!!!" All of his Angels cried out in concern.

I I I

Surprisingly, with all of the expert medics involved, it was Hana who figured out the problem. Many of them had, in turn, decided to check out his mind with the Yamanaka clan techniques when it was diagnosed that his body was perfectly healthy. But she was the one to make the connection between the intense traffic of his senses and the virtual inactivity of his higher thinking.

From that they were able to determine the problem.

The big disadvantage of the Sharingan, other than its activation requirement, was that it was a resource hog, grabbing ever larger portions of the brain's processing power and memory to operate itself, and it wouldn't release them without some external reset. Merely turning it off wasn't enough. Also, while operating, it was continually spewing out urges, programming its user to call upon its functions for ever more tasks, making the wielder more and more dependent upon it for all he did.

This can be taken advantage of.

The more one used of it, the greater a portion of your mind's potential it subverted to its own tasks and subroutines, releasing those only when the Sharingan itself was... uninstalled was the only proper word for it.

Normally, the mind has such vast processing power and memory this drain could be tolerated, to a degree, although the person would show increasing signs of aberrant behavior, gradually leading to insanity.

In Naruto's case this was far more extreme than normal. Since the Sharingan grants itself a greater priority over the resources of your mind than your own thoughts, a phenomena can be created which the Sharingan feels an infinite need to analyze, and thus consumes ALL mental resources FOREVER!

A Sharingan user faced with such a thing will find his mind caught up in an infinite loop, unable to respond to anything else, and if left alone will gradually die of starvation.

Naruto had, luckily or unluckily, discovered this more or less by accident merely by looking at his belt pouches with the special ready access storage seals he'd created. When the Sharingan caught a glimpse of them it began trying to decipher what it felt was the underlying nature of the universe and started to analyze this - a task FAR beyond all mortal comprehension. So it froze his mind solid, locking up all resources, tying them to a task that could not be completed in an infinite number of lifetimes.

The copy wheel eyes had taken such a strong control of Naruto's mind that nothing they could do could break the hold. So one month of failed attempts later, Anko was forced to pronounce him medically unfit to continue the chunin exam, forcing the reset, which luckily for all rebooted his mind (there had been substantial fear that it wouldn't - not even putting out his eyes had helped, as the supporting nerves had already tied his brain to priority tasks from which they would not release it, and Tsunade had been unwilling to lobotomize Naruto, cutting out his optic nerves and several lobes, to try a cure when the reset might work. But without nervous support shapeshifted for a Sharingan, his brain had been able to restore itself to normal function).

Experiments with Sasuke, having shown him one of those seals while he had his Sharingan active, then chopping up his brain to see what they had to cut out in order to fix the problem, had been promising, so they'd hoped, and it would be Tsunade's task to continue to do so until they had a cure, lest this same thing occur when they didn't have the resets to protect them. But it wasn't a cure anyone was anxious to need, regeneration or no.

Hana would later research the cause of the Sharingan-induced mental lockup and learn to duplicate it deliberately. There were, after all, several Sharingan users out there who were not too friendly to the Kitsune Clan.

During that month they still had Naruto's thousand clones that had been formed to go memorize the village's law, however, along with sundry others that had been formed to go do other tasks like see to their armor and refit the clan compound, and they got to most of those in time and told them not to disperse themselves before they could possibly avoid it.

Doing this they learned several things about the longevity of clones, and it was closely tied to the amount of chakra they had. Clones could not generate any of their own, and when they ran out they died. So this spurred on several attempts to jumpstart techniques for chakra transferal so Naruto's Angels could keep the clones of their husband around longer; increasingly desperate attempts as the real one did not wake up no matter what they could do, and the clones that had been using a ton of ninja techniques vanished.

Still, to their great relief, they had a happy ending (although developed a near paranoia about careless use of the sharingan, as they'd seen that it could shut one of them down forever to glimpse the wrong thing with it, and they were using a lot of those special storage seals as they were so useful). They also learned that while they had shapeshifted a Sharingan they did NOT also have the Hyuga White Eyes they'd grown so accustomed to, and which their fighting style depended on. It was one ability or the other, not both, and the Kyubi assured them it would always remain that way.

The Kitsune shapeshift could only copy what existed, and making up new stuff like a combination of the Hyuga and Uchiha vision powers lay outside of its ability. You could copy ears and use them as ears, or noses to use as noses, but two very different types of eyes with different supporting nerves clashed. The brain just could not support both at once as they stood, and so it would have to be something entirely new if you wanted both powers.

They could as easily make up entirely new bloodlines as do that.

And the month was not wasted, in that Naruto's clones (chiefly the ones who had gone to study law, as those had used very few techniques to start with, and thus had more energy and thus longevity) had seen to all of his business.

But it did frighten the clan about how very dependent they were on him for everything, and most Angels resolved to take up more of the slack on their own. Nobody was anxious to lose their collective husband, but they had to admit to the facts that they were ninja and those did die, even the best ones sometimes. So a support network for his wives and family had to be in place for in case he should ever be lost.

Still, words could not express their joy in having him back after the reset.

As an almost minor aside, from the Kitsune Clan's point of view, the day of the third stage of the chunin exam, right after Naruto had been disqualified but before the reset, the town had gotten invaded by Orochimaru again, this time using tactics that none of the girls had ever seen in person before.

But Naruto had shown them the memories of this invasion style long ago, the one where Gaara was placed under a Forced Sleep illusion, releasing the One Tailed Demon Raccoon in the center of Konoha. Also, from different parts of the village lightning gathered together to form the Six Tailed Demon Tiger, and various other elements combined to form the Eight Tailed Demon Dragon.

The destruction they wrought was completely unholy, and using that as a distraction a Cloud jonin he'd later learned was named Yugito had arrived to capture Hinata, although this time it was the lovely woman from Cloud who found herself surprised, having been totally unprepared for the girl's multi-layered bloodlines, huge store of jutsu and radically new fighting style.

Then she'd unleashed the Two Tailed Demon Cat, and Hinata was completely outclassed, getting beaten and captured in short order while the rest of Konoha got reduced to a smoking, dusty depression not even fit to call a crater, having been blasted so many times it was more of a dip in the ground without even so much as a recognizable burn or impact shape.

Using seventeen tails worth of beasts to destroy a village was really quite excessive.

I I I

There were thirteen buildings in the Uchiha estate where one could access the library. Each one had redundant copies of the large and complex seal that created the extra-dimensional space that contained the library, scribed in ink on foundation stones that had then been weather sealed with tar so even on examination the seals were invisible, black ink under tar, and so long as even one of those remained, the library lurked in secret, waiting.

All this time, and all unknowing, they had been conducting renovations so complete that he'd routinely been destroying each of those buildings and all thirteen copies of that seal.

Naturally, Naruto had been a bit leery about reactivating his shapeshifted Sharingan to find out the entrance code, but his Angels pleaded enough that he did that despite his misgivings, granting access to that library at last.

That was a big deal, because the Uchiha clan library was a big deal.

The big disadvantage of the Sharingan as a hereditary clan technique was that it was not an automatic advantage. Each clan member had to activate their own, it did not come in a working condition. They were born only with the potential, not the reality, of the famous copy eye, and only the actual threat of death could activate it.

Hard and vigorous sparring would not bring it out. Training and effort were useless. The Sharingan activated only under conditions where there was a very real threat of death, and the trainee knew they were close to dying. So unless your training techniques were certifiably insane, they couldn't do it.

Once it had initially activated, of course, the bearer could use it as he liked. But circumstances surrounding that initial switch from 'only the potential' to 'now I have an active Sharingan' had cost many of the Uchiha their lives.

The Kyubi attack had actually been one of the best things to ever happen to the Uchiha in that sense, as, in spite of their losses (which were relatively slight), the aura of sheer terror and violence exuded by the beast during its assault had left them with more active-Sharingan carrying members than at any other point during that clan's history.

Of course, there were illusion setups that could stimulate fear and danger hormones enough to potentially activate a Sharingan. However, those were, by necessity, so intense that it was possible to die simply of the fear they caused and the strain they placed upon the body. Some said it was especially hard to learn it that way, as being an illusion made the situation worse, not better, for trying to bring out their bloodline. So mostly the Uchiha relied on actual deadly peril, as most ninja found enough of that on their missions.

And, of course, that way they nicely avoided the difficulty of finding illusion specialists who cared enough about the Uchiha clan to activate their illusion-destroying bloodline, and yet were masters enough of their art to get those precise details just right to where the bloodline could activate with minimal risk to the patient.

Usually, when a person spends a lot of time to become good at something, they are not too fond of whatever comes along to make that art useless. So it was rare to find any illusion specialists willing to help them at all, and the Uchiha themselves produced few, if any, illusion masters, as it was hard for them to devote themselves to a profession their bloodline, and many other such gifts, could defeat with ease. That just didn't match with their egos.

So what experts they could find willing to help were less than true masters, lacking the detail and precision necessary to make activating a Sharingan's potential via illusions even approach safe.

No, overall, the Uchiha had found that actual risk of death was lower out on real combat assignments than being probed by just as deadly illusions (in most cases, illusions generated by people who didn't like them very much).

So, to make sure that as many of the young Uchiha survived those missions before their Sharingan activated as possible, the Uchiha clan made those who had activated it copy the techniques they used, or had stolen, into the clan library so that the younger generations could learn from those and be better prepared to survive those deadly circumstances intact.

This had, over the generations, grown into a vast collection.

Holding a mandatory library policy had also done the Uchiha clan some good in operating in spite of the Sharingan's second big disadvantage, in that stolen techniques arrived without organization or proper filing. Like throwing junk in an attic, the bloodline was just concerned with collecting the most massive amounts of information possible, and hang any stupid organization!

This tended to make those with Sharingan careless (to say the least) about using their stolen skills to their best advantage. Heck! Half of them couldn't even remember the names of all of the jutsu they already knew! And when it came time to use their skills, they had none of the mental triggers that say "Hey! I have a solution to that problem!" for sharingan copied techniques that a person who'd learned them the real way would acquire.

You might compare it to a man who has tons of bandsaws and other useful machinery in his basement, but never goes down there, never had to pay for any of it, and has no inventory of the place, so uses the screwdriver and hand saw that are hanging conveniently just inside the door of his garage.

He knows those tools, so they are the ones he uses, even though he might have better or more efficient or powerful ones hidden down in the deep, dark unexplored recesses of his dusty basement.

Uchiha had been known to die from circumstances they knew a technique that could fix, but had never thought to use.

You might own an entire city, but if you had no idea what it contained or what it could do, and didn't think about it much you wouldn't get much use from it.

So it had done the Uchiha good to have a library forcing them to spend time contemplating their stolen techniques. Then at least they had visited those mental basements and at least seen what they had down there. It had done a lot of offsetting the tendency of not even knowing what they'd copied in any kind of useful sense, just piling up a stock of techniques in the backs of their skulls they never thought of again unless prompted by outside cues.

Sitting them down and making them think about it for a while made them that much better at recalling what techniques they had available, brushing a few of the cobwebs off those unpaid-for tools. So, in a fight, they'd be more able to take them out and apply them without an enemy prompting them, say, by using that technique against them again.

Even so, forcing them to sit down and catalog all they'd learned, transferring that knowledge into the clan library, had helped, but did not solve all of the problem. The Copy Wheel Eye was infamous, in that those who used it had a marked tendency to use whatever techniques their opponent was using, whether they'd copied those in that fight, or fifty fights ago.

But nevertheless it had granted the clan an impressive stock of techniques, perhaps the largest in all of the elemental countries, as virtually anything an Uchiha had ever copied (which was most anything they'd seen) had wound up in there.

Of course, more than just techniques had been recorded in that place. The Uchiha clan had kept meticulous records of all of their activities, including some very secret and illegal ones. And the operational reports took up more space than the rest of the library. The black ops section alone was almost as large as the entire jutsu section of their rather infamous library.

After all, there are only so many techniques, but scheming can go on forever.

Armed with the Uchiha clan head's seal (stolen from the hollow space under the floorboards of Sasuke's apartment for this occasion) they were able to crack open the seals over that section and begin seeing what they had.

And they got floored by what they read.

"Treason, thy name is Uchiha." Kin whistled as she held up the documents she had been checking over.

Tenten's eyes were bulging as she read off in a different stack, shocked by completely different material. But it was Anko who summed it up best, "You know? So much of what was screwy and made no sense about this town just got explained - the Uchiha were deliberately messing things up! They must have been putting puppet strings in place, preparing to take over control of Konoha, since the town was founded! Some of those strings got severed, some remain, but they'd been working at this for a very long time."

Since the Kitsune couldn't even see each other over the towering stacks of black ops records, and it was possible to get lost among those files, that the Uchiha had been up to something for a long time was obviously the case.

Tsunade turned over her own sheet of paper on the stack she'd been reading. "And some of those tools they put in place to control this village are what Sarutobi's advisors found, and were using to do the same. This is where those loopholes and special emergency powers came from, the Uchiha have been putting them into place, law by law and line by line, from the beginning, planning their own eventual takeover."

Hinata shook her head, staring at her own supply of pages. "I don't know what you're reading, but what's before me has nothing to do with laws. These are all crimes of the blackest sort, all committed against citizens of Konoha."

Then all heads turned as they heard Kurenai shriek.

I I I

Author's Notes:

I refuse to acknowledge anything concerning an eight tailed character stolen from Ranma 1/2. I just think the whole idea is ridiculous, and I'm not going to put up with talk about one any more than I enjoyed arguing with those who insisted on having an 8-tailed snake back so long ago (do you remember?).

Recall, if it came in post-time-skip, forget about it ever happening. I gave you that warning in the first chapter. Anyway the whole ox and octopus hybrid being the 8-tail just smacks of bad fanfiction.

Although it does beg a parody fic where the tailed beasts are ALL characters taken out of Ranma 1/2.

Actually, I can so easily see a lovely Ranma-chan with nine fox tails flowing behind her. But it wouldn't be any fun if these beasts were sealed in anyone. You've got to let your transplanted Ranma characters run free, or it's just not interesting. Their personalities wouldn't matter otherwise. And there's no point to having one tailed demon pandas without that. Although I could see people trying to catch them.

Anyone want to make a go at it? That's a fic I'd love to see. 


	69. Chapter 69

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Sixty-Nine

by Lionheart

I I I

Kurenai stepped out of the forest into a clearing on the mountains, staring up at a sad and lonely mansion, towards the site of her greatest mistake.

Naruto stepped out of the forest behind her, and gave her a solemn nod.

The rest of Clan Kitsune also followed them out of the woods, girls carrying baskets containing blankets and picnic lunches for the celebration after they had succeeded in their mission - to finally undo one of the greatest schemes ever launched by the power-mad Uchiha clan.

And Kurenai personally wanted to make good her own greatest disgrace, a wrong she had been deceived into doing on her original student.

Yakumo Kurama.

Yakumo was a sweet girl and the heir of the Kurama clan, the last of their main family, but due to physical problems had never been enrolled in the ninja academy. Her natural illusion abilities, however, were incredible, the best her family had seen in generations.

In some ways she was the antithesis of Rock Lee. But where he was (or had been, before they'd cured him) unable to use advanced chakra techniques, so compensated by concentrating solely on his physical powers, this girl had been frail and weak, with no constitution, so had hoped to become a ninja using her amazing illusion abilities.

But no one had known all her physical problems had been caused by the Uchiha's poisons, they had assumed she was merely frail.

Not that long ago, the Kurama were among the greatest advanced bloodline users of Konoha, just like the Uchiha had been. They used to be justly famous for their powers, the best Konoha had at illusions, and their influence had spread throughout the village in another example of how that country loved its bloodlines. But in the past couple of generations their clan had begun shrinking and their powers waning. Then the clan head and his wife were assassinated in a bloody fire, and afterwards the family fell apart so no one even saw them around town anymore.

Unsurprisingly, their reasons for shrinking had been the same as the Senju clan - the Uchiha had been quietly killing them off in secret, hoping by this strategy to become the last and only remaining Great Clan. Then they would have Konoha all to themselves and rule it by default.

The Uchiha's private records as discovered in their library had been very clear on this. For years they had been poisoning their rival clans, damaging their bloodlines, killing them off on missions where possible, all to reduce the power of their enemies by stopping rival clans from developing the skills of higher level ninja. As there grew to be fewer and fewer chunin and jonin among them, the Uchiha's rivals naturally grew weaker, and the Uchiha comparatively stronger.

There was a reason the Hyuga kept so many guards around their compound, not only for protecting themselves, but their food and water supplies as well. But for their own purposes, the Hyuga did not make this secret war known to the other great clans, so as they declined, the Hyuga rose, perhaps hoping in the end to reveal the Uchiha's treachery and have them destroyed after their plan had mostly succeeded, leaving only the Hyuga as a great clan.

The Uchiha probably knew this was the Hyuga's intention, but were glad to let that confrontation wait until they were the last two great clans remaining.

Then Yakumo was born with such unbelievably large power that the plans of the Uchiha to destroy the Kurama could have been put back a generation or more. Naturally immune to the bloodline destroying poisons, the Uchiha had been forced to resort to other methods to destroy the girl.

Too high profile to kill, the Uchiha weakened her body with different poisons, destroying her constitution and making her frail. But even this did not reduce the girl's desire to become a successful ninja. So on the night they killed her parents, the Uchiha secretly sealed a minor demon into Yakumo, blaming it on her bloodline and hoping it could gradually take control of the girl's mind, body and power until it could turn her gift against the village and the Uchiha could use the destruction she caused as an excuse to openly exterminate the Kurama clan for good, this time with official sanction.

The plan worked better than expected. Yakumo's own clan blamed her for the deaths of her parents. She wanted to become a ninja more than anything, but her own clan feared her abilities as too powerful to control, mistaking the demon for the girl's own subconscious mind, and asked for the Hokage's permission to put her to death.

Attempting to defer that harsh fate, the eager girl had been made Kurenai's apprentice months before Team 8 graduated. But then after training seemed unable to improve the girl's control over her abilities, the Third Hokage had ordered her bloodline sealed.

Since that time Yakumo had been living alone under guard in the otherwise abandoned Kurama manor in the mountains above Konoha, learning to paint and quietly wasting away in darkness.

Nine months of torment the sweet girl had done nothing to deserve.

Senior ninja often had a major disgrace or two concealed somewhere in their past, and Kurenai's was that she could not discern the poisoning and forced possession for what they were, being led by the Kurama clan's assumptions to assume they were the girl's own failings instead of injuries inflicted on the child by jealous Uchiha, and participated in destroying Yakumo's dream.

But that mistake would be undone tonight.

Tsunade cracked her knuckles. They had the antidotes for the poisons the Uchiha had used. They'd very kindly left a list of all they'd employed. From that point collecting the right antidotes was trivial. Rebuilding her body to where it ought to have been without that damage would still be a challenge. But they could do it, although they'd have to keep doing it because of the resets.

Still, that was a price they were more than willing to pay to reclaim Kurenai's honor. Spiking one more plan of the Uchiha's was just a bonus.

Clan Kitsune approached the manor house in one body, firm expressions all around, and with Kurenai and Tsunade taking the lead. When the guards over the last main family Kurama came out to meet them, Kurenai showed them a stern expression, folding her arms across her chest, declaring, "New evidence has come to light concerning Yakumo Kurama, and her difficulties may not have anything to do with her bloodline at all. Tsunade of the sannin is here to assess her medical condition and provide treatment."

Stunned, the guards (two of which were medics) did nothing but stand aside.

Naruto darted inside and raced ahead to find the main lounge of the manor up on the second floor, creating dozens of clones to pull back all of the curtains in the darkened room, flooding the chamber with light to accompany his bright and cheery smile as he announced to the girl, "Yakumo! Today you get to become a ninja!"

Stunned, and wincing at the light not seen for months, it was all the brown haired beauty could do to gape in astonishment at the unfamiliar boy. Soon thereafter the chamber was flooded with kunoichi, a hospital bed produced, and to the bloodline heir's complete disbelief and astonishment, the seal placed on her bloodline abilities was the first thing they removed!

Well, aside from all of her clothes, of course. They were doctors, and this was a checkup, preparatory to some intensive reconstructive work.

Kurenai was already hugging her former protege, and explained, "I'm so sorry Yakumo! The Hokage ordered your bloodline sealed because of suspicions your own clan had that it was uncontrollable and dangerous to Konoha; but we only just uncovered evidence that it was never your fault at all! The Uchiha clan records have just been recovered, and they admit to secret operations against all other bloodline carrying clans in Konoha. Your family were poisoned to reduce their gifts, and when those poisons didn't work on you they used other ones to destroy your body's health, and sealed a minor demon into you to make it seem like your gift was uncontrollable. I'm so sorry for not having noticed the truth way back when. I promise to make it up to you."

Yakumo's response was utterly predictable. The sweet, shy and formerly determined girl who had been hurting and miserable for months broke down into crying at once, hugging Kurenai back tightly.

Naruto grinned and shot his red-eyed wife a thumbs up.

Predictably, the demon inside the girl chose this moment to try and assert control and ruin everything, only to find itself face-to-ugly-face with the grinning maw of the Kyubi no Kitsune.

One massive struggle later and half of the manor house was wrecked (and the guards massively freaked out), but the minor demon was dead, while Yakumo was fine. The Kyubi had only recovered two, nearly three tails worth of power from her near death experience and coma of so long ago, and each tail seemed to be taking longer to recover than the last one. Still, what she had available had been totally sufficient for defeating one minor demon.

"We're going to have to find an easier way of exorcising that thing," Shizune mentioned conversationally as she righted a medical table that had been knocked over.

"The outcome of this one was never in doubt," Yugao brushed soot off her sleeves. "One minor demon versus the Kyubi? C'mon!"

"Still, it was a bit messy," Hinata allowed, gazing about the destruction.

"I'll put someone on it," Hana declared. "Who knows? Researching better ways to end demon possession might have all sorts of utility. It seems easy enough to seal them into people, why should it be so hard to take them out?"

"Don't you love me anymore?" The kyubi took the form of a small redhaired girl to plead with puppy dog eyes at the collected Angels.

They all broke down laughing in good natured fun over the teasing.

Yakumo's lovely brown eyes had grown to be as wide as saucers. "Is that... really..?" she pointed a helpless finger to the fox demon.

"The Nine Tailed Demon Fox? Sure! That's her." Anko declared happily.

"She's my pet. I call her Fluffy. Here, you can pet her." Naruto picked up the demon fox (who was now about the size and shape of a true fox, although with nine lovely and luxurious tails) and plopped her down in the lap of their newest patient.

Wonder swiftly overcoming terror, in no small part due to the overwhelming unreality of the entire situation, Yakumo slowly began to pet the kyubi.

Ino began to smirk, inwardly deciding that they'd have that girl's bloodline in the clan sooner rather than later, and propagated among them not long after that, she felt certain.

Kin's experiments to give them all the Ice bloodline were finally coming to fruition, with more successes than not these days, and only a few more tries before they got it extended to everyone, if this followed the usual pattern. Anko's experiments to create a living flesh clone body were nearing success as well. The bodies she was creating were now increasingly viable. They could live on their own now, though their health and performance was flawed. Still, the hard work there had been done, and Haku and Zabuza were now close to joining them in a much more real and vital sense.

If they didn't start work on the Kurama bloodline they would have nothing to do on the medical front. And she knew how her clan hated boredom.

Plus, Yakumo's bloodline was dead useful, and hit one of the Kitsune clan's few weaknesses.

There were illusions that could defeat special bloodlines like the White Eyes, or even the mighty Sharingan, even at its highest levels. For most people those were all extremely high level illusions. That they were beyond the reach of even most illusion specialists was perfectly understandable, as they were by definition cresting extremely potent defenses against them.

However, even those special high end illusions were limited. The special eye bloodlines were all vision based, naturally, and the highly advanced illusions that could defeat those were not the same ones that could fool an Inuzuka's nose, nor had anyone ever thought up a way to deceive the Kitsune clan's new ears - a big part of that was that no one outside the clan or their allies even knew those ears existed.

Still, it took an extremely complex and detailed illusion to fool even one of those greatly enhanced senses, and matching up three of them in one clan's bloodline set made them virtually undefeatable by illusion users.

The vast majority of illusions fooled the senses, but the bloodline gift of the Kurama allowed them to fool the brain directly. So heightened senses were of no use against it, and there was no limit to the size of the illusions.

By fooling the brain directly, it was possible to injure or even kill using illusions, to convince them their techniques don't work, or that they can't move. Virtually anything a person could perceive they could be made to feel was really happening to them.

Previous to this, there was only one that could even try that route: Itachi Uchiha using the Kaleidoscope Sharingan's special time/space illusion on which Naruto had based his own Time Dilation illusion he used for training. The Uchiha technique did not try to fool the senses, as most did. No, it was also one of those rare abilities that directly overpowered the mind.

But, well, some of the higher order Yamanaka clan techniques provided a potent defense against having their mind overthrown by an outsider. But the Kurama abilities provided another aspect to that.

Ino, having long since convinced her parents that she was worthy of more and more and higher and higher orders of her clan techniques, quite naturally knew of those defenses and had shared them with her husband and his wives.

Since all present members of the Kitsune Clan knew those Yamanaka jutsus, there really wasn't much point in trying to overcome them with illusions. On the plus side, the sensory details that made them so very hard to fool with illusion techniques gave them a massive edge in creating them. All hard detail for raw material one could want got included as their senses were simply keener and processed more than the average person they were trying to deceive. And they had magnified that by training with each of their senses, trying to reach their maximum potentials.

As the rest of the Kurama noticed a disturbance at the manor and attacked, afraid that the demon within Yakumo was getting loose, Naruto very quietly allowed the Kyubi to go eat them while he kept the guards under illusions.

Yeah, that might be more punishment than they deserved for the simple crime of having been deceived, but no one had required them to mistreat the girl or leave her alone for so long after she'd been sealed.

As he ought to know better than any male alive, girls were social creatures, and it injured them to be alone for so long. Which was a big part of what he was intending to fix. Yakumo wasn't going to be alone again if he could help it.

And, if the Kyubi just happened to learn enough about the Kurama bloodline from devouring their Branch House a few times to grant those abilities to himself and his wives without the medical work, so much the better.

Clan Kitsune members were not just poised to be the medical and illusion masters of Konoha, or even the entire ninja world, they were becoming so.

Then Naruto grabbed a hold of the startled (and still naked) Yakumo girl and swept her mind away while his clan medics went to work restoring her body.

I I I

Naruto had been playing with that Time Dilation illusion of his again and had created a version for use on Gaara, much like the one he'd used on Lee. Only instead of cramming two years of chakra and elemental affinity training into four minutes of real time (he'd expanded the recording from it's original one year in two minutes, as he felt more material ought to be covered) he used that time and taught basic hand to hand combat, as that was something that Gaara had never learned; had never felt the need for, honestly.

To keep the two applications of the technique straight in everyone's mind, Kurenai had dubbed one the Elemental Master illusion, and the other had come to be called the Martial Master illusion, although even so that was something of a misnomer as the education gained was all mental, and thus only about the level of a top-rank rookie genin, not much of a combat powerhouse the name 'Martial Master' usually evoked.

Still, it was very like the physical knowledge of the rest of Clan Kitsune, in that obtaining the right reflexes (either by use of a captured Sharingan or practice out in the real non-looped world) could raise that up significantly, to about the level of a rookie chunin (or, with further practice and instruction after the right reflexes had been obtained, to about mid-chunin, where most of the rest of them had gotten stuck).

The concept that he could create MORE of these than the original chakra-training illusion more or less put the entire clan into an excited uproar, as they all wanted to know how to pass on more of the important skills this way.

Conversations were ongoing among the clan about which one to create next, as the principle behind those two illusions seemed to be broadly applicable. The Elemental Master illusion set up to be used on Lee had proved able to be used to give instruction to just about anyone. They'd tried it out on a number of their fellow genin during the exam, and the recorded training program still seemed to work, although limited by the principles of its design. The illusion imparted only so much knowledge, and of a set type, so if you already knew some portion of that the recording just did that much less good for you.

Naruto's Angels didn't need it, not for themselves anyway, being already far better at those things than the mere illusions could teach. Still, the ability to pass on so much knowledge and experience to those who were NOT members of the Kitsune Clan had fascinating potential.

Naturally, none of them could create an illusion for training in a skill they didn't have, as it was essentially a very brief real-time attempt to teach a subject quickly, and you can't teach what you don't know yourself.

Still, it was a very useful tool for bringing certain people up to speed. They'd used both illusions on Sakura, and the benefits had been measurable. Being trained in hand to hand combat and elemental manipulation had really changed the pink haired girl's ninja fighting style for the better.

So now the debate was going on over what to create an illusion for next.

Tenten wanted him to create a Throwing Master illusion, as with interlocking fields of fire they could lay down some impressive coverage that would be able to shut down all but the most versatile of ninja opponents. In short, she'd like the others of her clan to be able to share the joy of her specialty.

Yugao was the same for hers, wanting an illusion that taught melee weaponry so more of the clan would approach her level, more quickly. Also she gave the argument that they occasionally had to fight Hyuga, as that clan grew very displeased from time to time over the Kitsunes having effectively stolen the Hyuga heir from them just as she was getting interesting.

Well, the Hyuga were only interested in power, and Hinata becoming powerful was a result of her Naruto-kun, so no one in Clan Kitsune felt the least need or desire to humor the arrogant Hyuga's on this, even a little bit, and that occasionally led to fighting (and they couldn't ALWAYS just blast the Branch House out of existence via handseals - that would be boring, and felt unfair to the poor, unfortunate Branch members).

One of the best ways to fight a Hyuga was with a sword or other weapon, as it had no chakra points to close, and the extra reach of a good, sharp blade was an excellent deterrent for keeping those bare-hand fighters far enough away so as to not be able to strike any hits on your body.

Tsunade wanted a Medical Mastery illusion, as there were not nearly enough ninja medics in the world, and the ability to create more at need was a dream come true for her and Shizune both. Actually, she was adamant that Hidden Sand needed the strongest burst of remedial medical training they could throw at it, as fast as it could be delivered, as their hospital and medical care was simply atrocious by her standards.

The upper limit on what those specialty training illusions could teach you appeared to be set at about rookie chunin level, but a chunin level medic was still a far cry better than no medics at all, which is what most teams had.

Hana actually spoke up with a different proposition than anyone, wanting an illusion covering what material ought to be covered in the Ninja Academy, basic stuff like academic knowledge, handseals, chakra molding and the Basic Three. The stuff any ninja ought to know, but a surprising number didn't. Her argument was based on two points. First was that most of the ninja who ought to know these things didn't, or didn't know them well enough, and they were taught for a reason - knowing history and geography, while they may seem boring subjects to kids who wanted to go pound on someone, provided surprising tactical advantages in the field.

The history of ninja was war, and knowing what wars were fought before, and the ground they got fought over, gave a wealth of ideas to a ninja who knew what had gone before. 'So and so used a pass to pull off a trap and destroy superior forces? Well, you know there's a pass like that not far from here.' Or 'Seven times in history people have tried X approach, and it NEVER worked! It may seem rational, but it never works!' Things like that.

But Hana's second reason was actually far more compelling, it was that when the clan's children came into the world they'd be vulnerable to folks outside the clan, or even from outside the village, trying to manipulate or kidnap the vulnerable young tykes to learn the secrets of the Kitsune bloodline.

Bloodline theft and the techniques thereof were concepts well known to the entirety of the Kitsune Clan, and the possibility for others trying to steal their line was very real, as it was enormously valuable.

Such a thing had even been attempted before, with Hinata, long before the resets even started. And that was only an attempt based on her precious Hyuga eyes. Now her bloodline was worth infinitely more.

Actually, now the subject was broached, one of those they suspected would most like to chop Hinata up into tiny pieces to study her new bloodline powers was the Hyuga clan itself - and could explain some of those attempts on her by them. Not all of the Hyuga wanted her back because she was powerful and they'd like her to lead them. Some might want her because now she regularly displayed bloodline powers they'd like to have copies of for themselves.

Hana's argument centered around the fact that the sooner the Kitsune could educate the children they eventually had in basic ninja skills and techniques, the less danger those children would be in from that sort of thing. And if, by the time they could walk (or whenever was deemed safe), they could have a basic ninja education shoved inside of their dear little heads, that could not only serve as a potentially deadly surprise to anyone trying to make off with them, but could serve as a foundation for the other training illusions they all wanted to develop.

Also, it had to be said, the official Ninja Academy didn't do so hot a job on its own material. There were some, even among the Rookie Nine, who had at best a tenuous grasp of some fairly large portions of that curriculum. Heck, there were chunin, and not a few jonin, who could use a refresher course!

In the end agreement came that everything Naruto could teach via recorded training illusions was to the better. Fortunately for them, Gaara was actually a more or less blank slate for him to practice on, and one outside the resets so he was continually wiped clean, so Naruto could practice on him again and again. That enabled him to refine how he taught those ninja skills.

The demon container for Shukaku only did one thing - use his sand. He'd not been officially trained in the ninja arts for very long. The guy knew how to use chakra, and that was essentially it, everything else he did relied in some form on his sand. So Temari's youngest brother could be taught virtually anything over and over again until they'd gotten how to teach it down right.

Hand to hand combat? Gaara didn't use any, not in any practical sense, it was all animated sand doing it for him.

Elemental manipulation? He used his sand. That was it.

So they were able to experiment with the two training illusions they already had on him, and the results they got were interesting, to say the least. For one thing, Gaara got FAR deadlier when he understood the basic principles of hand to hand fighting! Not that he moved around a great deal more, but he could anticipate the moves of his opponents better, and thus better use his sand to trap and block them.

And once they'd started him on using Wind techniques, adding long range attacks and defenses to his repetoir, that just multiplied how scary he was! There wasn't anywhere safe on a battlefield, nowhere he couldn't reach you!

But it wasn't only Wind. That illusion taught basics in all five elements, and Gaara was just downright scary when he didn't have to devote all of his sand to everything he wanted to do, all of the time. When he could protect himself behind Earth Style Walls, less sand and chakra had to be used on defense. A Lightning technique or two closed up one of the one-tailed container's few weaknesses - fast attacks at range. And the guy took a perverse delight in sending Water jutsus back at his enemies instead of letting it soak his sand.

But Fire... he'd taken a brand new delight in burning things. It was disturbing.

Tenten was of the opinion that once they could train him in throwing, Gaara would be able to form weapons out of that sand of his and project them like kunai or shuriken. Not so much on the face of it, until it dawned that once he could throw globs of his sand around he could get it closer to more people, faster, and thus become far deadlier.

A knife stuck in you was one thing. But when that knife was able to grown and shift deeper into the wound all on its own? Spreading out blades of itself to cut an ever larger hole?

Scary.

The general consensus was that she was right, but nobody wanted to try it just yet, as this newly improved and deadlier Gaara they already had was already taking some getting used to.

He liked to play with fire a little TOO much!

However, using those techniques on Yakumo? The big drawback to developing them was at least the first couple of times the one crafting the illusion had to stay inside to monitor it. It was only after patterns had strongly developed that they could record it to play automatically. So the big drawback was that it was boring.

That explained why Naruto was positively DELIGHTED by the ability to dive into a fresh new mind he had not encountered before, to play with a friendly and nice person he'd never met before (those had been pretty rare during his life), and teach her all the material covered by those illusions straight through. He even stayed with her through the already mastered ones, the elemental training and hand to hand fighting ones, just to see her and get to know her (and, incidentally, in doing so improved those two illusions, refining them markedly beyond their original one-person audience).

Of course, the natural result of two nice people, a boy and a girl, spending a great deal of subjective time together under friendly circumstances, had the natural result that when they came out they were VERY friendly.

This was still Naruto, who routinely made friends out of his enemies. A nice and pretty girl like Yakumo never had a chance to dislike him, especially since she saw no reason to - he was helping her obtain a desire she'd long dreamed of. She was becoming a ninja!

So, forty minutes and ten training illusions later, after twenty subjective years of being together nonstop, it was no surprise to the rest of Naruto's wives that immediately upon exiting the techniques Yakumo wrapped herself (still naked) around Naruto and began to kiss his lungs out.

She then began to groan as Naruto began to massage her.

Sakura stirred in jealousy as the kyubi nipped the girl minutes later, granting her their bloodline and welcoming her officially into the clan amidst great rejoicings to be had by all - with Kurenai at last feeling vindicated, able to forgive herself of her past mistake at last.

Yakumo was a ninja, and had the best husband in all the world.

I I I

Author's Notes:

I actually would have brought that girl in long before now, only someone told me her illusions were real - and you give me control of real illusions and there is nothing that I cannot do. Actually, that's all Green Lantern's power ring does, create momentary illusions that can affect the real world, and I could abuse that to no end.

Merely very, very convincing illusions is nothing by comparison to the ability to conjure up fake bulldozers than can move real dirt, and so on. No, I had to prevent myself from taking hold of that, or else nothing could have stopped my Naruto and this story would have been over ages ago.

Only now I discover that's not what she does at all. Grr! Oh well, better late than never. She's in! 


	70. Chapter 70

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy

by Lionheart

I I I

Do none of you remember my promise that if you bitch about something, I'll give you MORE of it?

Well, a few of you loudmouths started grumbling about my dragging this on and on with no end in sight. So we get to drag on and on a little more. I was rushing to conclude things. No hurry now.

I I I

One of the Sound Four turned to face his companion as they escorted Lord Orochimaru to Konoha. "Tayuya, you haven't sworn all morning."

"[Censored]."

"Even that didn't sound like you really meant it."

"[Censored] yourself, you [Censored] [Censored]!"

In truth, she HAD been cutting back on the swearing, even to dropping it entirely, because Naruto didn't like it, and when you did something he didn't like you didn't get the nifty goodies he could provide, like back and foot rubs.

Realistically, she'd kill the rest of the Sound Four herself just to keep those massages coming. Heck, she'd defy Orochimaru to his face, or try to assassinate him, and either way die gladly, to keep Naruto happy with her.

It was thoughts like that that caused her to wonder, sometimes if she hadn't just jumped from one cult to another when making the switch from loyalty to the Sound to adherence to the Kitsune. But she was so happy with the choice that she didn't much care either way. It was just curiosity.

The Daimyos in their courts did not live half so well as Naruto's wives - they ought to know from how many times a Daimyo had tried to recruit the boy!

So if wealth and privilege and near-infinite pleasure made it a cult, so be it. She didn't know of a girl in the Elemental Countries that wouldn't join it if she got offered an opportunity.

Just their bad luck she and her sister-wives had gotten to him first.

Tayuya glanced at her fellow Sound ninja across the campfire she'd prepared to cook breakfast over. Originally, they'd all just eaten ration bars they'd unsealed from scrolls. But that got old quickly. Even when a mission was just a few days duration it was a blessed relief to go off rations onto real food.

In resets, where change was the only entertainment, good food was more vital to life than it was possible to imagine - because the recipe used was up to you to determine, and so could be as different as you liked.

There had been one or two surprised eyebrows raised when she'd rolled out of bed and curtly ordered Kidomaru to use some of that golden spider thread of his to catch her a few dozen songbirds, Jirobo to make some mud domes to serve as ovens, Ukon and Sakon to go use that bloodlimit of theirs to jump in a creek, dissolve themselves, and use their cells to poison some fish to bring back to her so she could make them breakfast.

Surprised, but they'd gone ahead and done it. Then she'd sent them all back out to gather fruits and nuts, while she herself had created a couple of Shadow Clones who were out carefully selecting herbs and mushrooms to flavor the feast.

No one questioned where she got the bag of flour she was making crusts out of (Naruto had delivered it), but Tayuya's arms were white up to her elbows as she prepared for the mince pies and other treats she was baking.

Today was going to be a big day for Tayuya. It deserved a celebration so she was going all out as she prepared a feast. Meat pies of delicate songbird, hot sticky buns of wild honey and spices, roast fish and rice for the traditionalist among them with fruit pies and nut cakes for dessert.

Even Orochimaru had paused to watch her prepare this repast. The other Sound Four simply stared as they never knew she could cook before. Well, she couldn't, not before the resets anyway. She could understand her team wanting to carefully observe her to make sure she wasn't poisoning anything. Orochimaru didn't care. They still hadn't found a poison that would give him more than a slight headache. But he was finding her unexpected display of domestic ability amusing.

Tayuya was among the best actresses in Clan Kitsune. Because, like Naruto, she had the most demanding audience to play for. Everyone kept an eye on the Konoha Demon Container for fear he might go berserk. Sound ninja kept an eye on each other waiting for all-too-frequent betrayals.

Only Kin had as demanding an audience to play before as Naruto and Tayuya. But today she didn't care. She'd been campaigning for this moment for, well, since her first reset, really. The delays had been ghastly to have to wait through, even though she understood the reasons.

It wasn't often a new bloodline got created under the nose of Orochimaru. Oh, it was possible. They could do it. But it wasted opportunities to just go ahead and do it when they could accomplish so much more with it.

Orochimaru was a genius who had experimented with bloodline creation before. In fact, he'd made several near-successful attempts (just one of which was that potion cocktail that he'd given to Mizuki to test on himself).

It seemed a waste not to tap that genius for what they could get out of it.

Tayuya had woken up this morning without her memories as always, then as usual one of the stones she'd stepped on right as she was rolling out of her tent had been a shapeshifted Naruto clone who'd given her back all of her memories of these resets. For the longest time that had been the method used to restore her memories (and slip her a scroll of baking supplies).

But today was going to be the big day, the day she got the Kitsune bloodline and would no longer have to be woken up at each new reset. Of course, it had only taken this long because, unlike the other girls in the clan, they had some rather special circumstances surrounding this induction ceremony.

After all, you only become a Kitsune once, because once was forever. And it was a touch different to do it under the watchful eyes of the Snake Sannin. They'd just spent a rapid few one-day resets getting the introduction right.

The girl tried not to mentally chant, 'This time for sure!' as she prepared.

Tayuya was just tasting the food, having lifted the last of the pies out of the ovens, when her ears, her normal, ordinary human ears (not yet having foxy ones, although that was something she expected to change within minutes), perked up as she heard someone approaching the Sound camp.

Hiding was instant and instinctual for every Sound ninja. Their camp vanished with all of the thoroughness only long-term missing ninja could achieve. This was natural, as most of them and their teachers had gone that route once, before being recruited to Sound.

Tayuya was slightly annoyed at having to seal all of her freshly baked food into a scroll as she vanished also, but only slightly.

This was part of the plan, after all.

Orochimaru was one suspicious snake, and it took a lot to pull the wool over his eyes. To get his cooperation? Well, that was next to impossible. Luckily for them, Naruto was good at accomplishing the impossible.

Moments later Tsunade and Shizune rushed into the clearing, the younger holding a struggling boy dressed in orange all wrapped up in ninja wire.

"Quiet brat!" Tsunade hissed, forming hand seals. Hidden up in the forest canopy, Tayuya had to be impressed by the Slug Sannin's acting. It wasn't often anymore she let herself go back to anything close to what she once was, but she was currently playing the 'drunken, washed up gambler' role to the hilt.

This was the Slug Sannin the rest of the world knew, the one before the resets, a former ninja hurting over deaths long gone by, and an image they had not seen nearly since they'd begun to include her, as Naruto's love had washed away those old hurts to the point where Tsunade'd forgotten them herself, despite often deliberate attempts to remind her around the village.

Shizune had placed Naruto on the ground, still tightly wrapped up in wire, as Tsunade set privacy seals around the clearing.

Naruto, too, was portraying a brilliant job of acting like the 'Dead Last' spies would have reported to Orochimaru the Uchiha's teammate to be, as he squirmed helplessly within those wires.

The redhaired Sound kunoichi suppressed her laughter with the skill of long experience, as she knew he knew at least a dozen different ways to escape that cocoon of ninja wires binding him.

"I thought you said the knockout poison would last at least twelve hours!" Shizune protested, once again displaying a brilliant job of acting. "It didn't even keep him down for twelve minutes!"

She ought to be doing a good job, they'd practiced this enough times - the last even being live dress rehearsals before Orochimaru. Hopefully this time they'd ironed out the last few errors and could go through to the planned conclusion. Tayuya hoped and prayed this would be so. She'd waited enough.

"It's his regeneration," Tsunade declared, coming back from having set the privacy seals to look over the boy with a diagnostic jutsu. "It cleared the poison long before he should have been able to recover."

"Will we still be able to..?" Shizune cut herself off, lest she be heard.

"No," Tsunade shook her head, resigned. "We'll have to do it here."

"Do what?" Orochimaru asked, emerging from the shadows, ever the drama queen, Tayuya and Jirobo flanking him, having followed his hidden orders. The other two members of the Sound Four were even now flanking the kunoichi.

Tsunade tensed, but her hand shot out to grab Shizune's wrist and stop her from reacting with her senbon launchers. The Slug Sannin seemed to evaluate her old teammate for a moment, before she burst out, "Okay, I want to know how you learned about this!" she challenged, rising up to crowd his pale face. "You've been having me followed, haven't you? Why have you come here? To interrupt? It's not like you haven't gotten away with worse!"

"Kukukuku!" Orochimaru chuckled, genuinely amused over the mixture of anger, fear and somewhat disguised humiliation on the features of his old teammate. "I've done worse things than keep tabs on old friends, Tsunade," he admitted. "And you ought to know why I've come here."

Tayuya kept her face blank and vaguely hostile only by dint of ceaseless experience. The Snake Sannin was bluffing, implying that he knew what was going on and doing a masterful job of it. He couldn't know, because they'd only come up with this ruse during the resets. But still he portrayed himself as though in total control of the situation.

The guy had to be among the most powerful ninja ever seen - as there was a lot more to power than just winning fights. He was most of the way there to changing the shape of the Elemental countries in a way not seen since the first founding of the ninja villages.

You didn't do stuff like that without a heck of a lot more than mere combat skill. Any ninja could learn stuff, but Orochimaru created new powers.

Tsunade's shoulders slumped, as though defeated, and she actually sobbed. It was a marvelous performance. She looked broken as she dropped her head and wiped tears from her eyes. "I ought to have known."

Shizune stepped forward, putting her hands on her mentor's shoulders in concern, looking up at the other ninja in fright.

"Kukukuku!" The pale man laughed again, stepping forward himself. "Now, no need to be that way," he spoke soothingly to his old teammate. "We're here to help you."

Once again Tayuya successfully fought off the facial tick of her laughter. He was making all of this up! Still, it amazed her he sounded so genuine. His ability to manipulate people was nigh unto his combat skill.

They only had to do better acting than he was, that's all.

Tsunade raised her tear-streaked face to her old comrade, a spot of hope showing in her eyes. "You have?" she asked in the frightened wonder of a broken person who dares not yet hope. She let loose a bitter chuckle. "How silly of me. You've done this before. But we all hated you for it..."

She looked at him as though scanning his face for honesty.

Orochimaru's display of genial, helpful friendliness was actually frightening considering how swiftly he'd turned coldly murderous over the slightest slip during their last few attempts at this. "Of course I am," he promised, laying a helpful hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you show me how far you've come so far? Then I can help you overcome the problems."

A brilliant bluff. He knew nothing, so he'd just told her to lay out her plans for him to look over for errors.

Tsunade acted just broken and desperate enough to go along with that. She drew in a deep shuddering breath. "Well, you know about the fatal flaw of my regeneration technique. It's... gotten bad."

"Oh?" Orochimaru leaned close, already putting dozens of puzzle pieces together in his head. Now he suspected what she was doing.

Looking for all the world as though she believed he already knew what she was implying, and that she was unaware that he was playing her for a fool, Tsunade simply dropped her permanent illusion as her answer.

Actually, she hadn't needed that illusion for the longest time. Due to her adoption into the Clan and the acquiring of their bloodline, she'd gone from merely looking young to being younger. She looked great, and was as healthy as it was possible to be. But that didn't fit the script, so for purposes of this little charade here, she'd put on a second permanent illusion under her first - one that made her look horribly bad.

Before the resets, under her illusion, Tsunade had been a hag, aged by both natural means and her emergency regeneration technique to the point where she was so wrinkled she looked like she'd been sucking on lemons for thirty years straight, without break.

Now, she looked worse. She was just as wrinkled, if not more so, only she also had ugly, cancerous warts covering her body. Her flesh sagged off her limbs like an empty bag, and was covered by ugly discolored patches. Her left cheek was inflated to the size of a grapefruit by a malignant tumor oozing puss, and oozing, open sores covered her neck, obviously infected. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, and her once gorgeous hair had partly fallen out.

Orochimaru actually recoiled in shock. Poor Jirobo vomited, and Tayuya could hear her other teammates losing what was left of last night's dinner in the bushes. Her own face turned green, and that was not a trick. Tsunade looked plainly awful! And she smelled worse, like old people and rot and drugs.

It was a truly horrific illusion, and everyone was glad when she covered it up under her young look again. But one bonus of looking so bad was no one was anxious to probe closely to look for any flaws in her image - not that there were any. Tsunade was a medic, the best alive. She knew what awful ill health could look like, as she'd often enough been called to deal with those cases.

"So you see," she confessed. "I've got to work fast. I haven't got much time left, as my body is falling apart. You've worked with immortality before. I was going to try to hack up this genin to study his healing ability. But..?"

She looked at him hopefully.

Orochimaru now felt he knew what was going on, and his face grew one of his trademark too wide grins. To his understanding, his vain old teammate had run up against that barrier they'd all fought against - old age, and now was trying desperately to seek answers, just as he'd done so long ago. He could believe it, too. Her regeneration technique cost her years each time it was used. They weren't young, either, but that would age her older than most.

Suddenly he felt in total command of the situation.

"You promised to help," she pleaded, while Shizune just looked on, appearing both helpless and concerned.

A slight variation to this script would result in Orochimaru whipping out his body transfer/possession technique to teach to his fellow sannin - hauling Tayuya forward to offer her as Tsunade's new host, then laughing as his old teammate got a 'new' body - one already marked with his cursed seal, and thus forced to serve him much like the Hyuga Branch House.

Tayuya hadn't liked that reset, but had gone along with it as they all knew it wasn't permanent, and knowing the guy's technique for taking over bodies went a long way to knowing how to reverse or defeat it.

However they'd learned that jutsu, so there was no reason to do that again.

Actually, in every reset the first moment Tayuya got a second she'd remove her cursed seal and place an illusion over it so he'd think it was still on her. After a dozen such experiments, she'd gradually learned how to circumvent all the security that let him know whether it was actually there or not.

The Cursed Seal Illusion might not have general utility, but it was priceless knowledge in her position, as she woke up each reset practically within arm's reach of the sannin, but didn't want to be his puppet any longer.

Interrupting just before the pale snake was about to make the offer, Naruto rolled up against Shizune's legs, toppling her over onto her surprised mentor, knocking both of them down on Orochimaru.

Of such small changes are great things sometimes availed.

Tayuya leaped forward, already raising a kunai to stab the blonde genin she loved more than life itself (NOT a fact she was anxious to advertise to her current employer), but instead only managed to cut his coat and some wires as he wriggled about frantically.

Wires cut, the genin sprang up and immediately reversed the entrapment technique, catching all of the pile of ninja and their Sound Four guards in a moment.

The one time they'd pressed it, they'd proved to have only caught a mud clone of Orochi-bastard. He was slippery as an eel, but he was playful in his own twisted way, and the guy was content to pretend they'd caught him.

For now.

Suddenly Naruto stopped, asking conversationally. "Say, Orochimaru, you're interested in bloodlines, aren't you? Have you ever wondered what it does to a person to be bitten by the Kyubi?"

It was a calculated risk, but everything with the Snake Sannin was.

The pale sannin blinked from where he was bound. "I would assume that it would involve total destruction of the body being bitten."

"Usually, yes," Naruto agreed. "However, there are one or two circumstances under which it turns out different - like so!"

Bending over, he gave Tsunade a nip on her exposed shoulder, and in conjunction with that she released the shapeshift holding her 'clan package' at bay - revealing herself with her delicious blonde foxy bits.

Tsunade did a wonderful job of staring at her hands, releasing her permanent illusions (both of them, like it was one) and then rubbing at her face in wonder - only to discover an extra set of ears on top of her head.

Her look of shock was priceless. Tayuya had to remind herself it was fake.

"Kukukuku!" Orochimaru's limbs melted into his body and he slithered like a snake out of those wire bands, before reforming his human shape again, all of this done absently, like someone else would pick up a glass. "Interesting."

"Isn't it though?" Naruto agreed, all friendliness, before he quickly nipped Shizune, who'd been staring in wonderfully faked shock at her mentor, and triggered all of the same changes to her.

"How does it work?" The Snake Sannin leaned over the boy's shoulder to inspect the changes, but for all he could tell they were real.

That's because they were the real deal. They'd bear up under any amount of testing. But that was just to get him interested. He hadn't watched the actual conversion process from the stance of a medic or a scientist. They had deliberately slipped by these quickly to catch his attention with the process and get him interested in observing it further.

By now Ino had already used one of the variants of her family techniques to launch an attack from extreme range and was now listening in to the Snake Sannin's thoughts. Heck, they had half the Clan out there trying that!

No control, but this way they wouldn't have to trick him into saying anything. What he thought when he observed this would be recorded by them as they silently listened in to his private thoughts from the back of his head.

Yeah, the Yamanaka could be insidious that way. They were one of the Great Clans for a reason, you know.

Naruto grinned up at Orochimaru. "Now that would be telling!" he teased.

Instantly he was wrapped up in summoned anacondas, against which Naruto kicked futilely, trying to escape their crushing hold. "It's a contagion! I can pick females out as mates and the bloodline the Kyubi gives me transfers a copy to them!"

"Kukukuku! Interesting," the Snake Sannin gloated. Tayuya found herself shoved forward, and found it the hardest experience of her life to pretend apprehension as this moment she'd been waiting so long for arrived. "Show me. I'd like a better look at the conversion."

Naruto got released from the snakes and Tayuya shot an apprehensive glance to the leader of her titular village, just to show the proper spirit of 'Hey! What are you throwing me into here?'.

Got to keep up appearances.

Objections meant nothing to Orochimaru, of course. Kin had a complicated dance not to be used as a sacrifice for him bringing back the old Hokages. It was one of the more depressing lessons the former Sound ninja had learned: Orochimaru had no loyalty to anyone but himself. You serve him, and he picks the way you serve him, even as experimental fodder.

Often as experimental fodder, actually.

Ninja skill provided no safety, as he wanted to test things on strong ninja as well as weak. They often complained that the man knew nothing of the value of a good tool.

Naruto, of course, bless his kind heart, still didn't view ninjas as tools. It was one of those thoughts that every time it occurred to them turned his kunoichi into snuggle bunnies.

"What does this bloodline of yours involve?" Orochimaru asked while Tayuya nervously bared her neck.

Naruto shrugged. "Oh, just the basics: stronger, faster, extra keen senses, a tail you can learn to use as an extra weapon, regeneration for injuries, and a form of immortality in that you no longer age after reaching your prime."

He bit down on Tayuya's neck...

... only it wasn't Tayuya.

Naruto's eyes widened as his eyes met Orochimaru's, the blonde's teeth still locked in the Sannin's shoulder. He'd intended to tease his foe with a "See what cool stuff she's getting that you are not?" and apparently succeeded only too well, as the sannin had performed a flawless last second Body Switch with the redhaired girl he'd actually intended to accept as a Kitsune.

Running through Orochimaru's mind at that moment was the thought of having a bloodline that did everything he'd ever wanted sans the copy ability of the Sharingan - and being able to pass that through his own ninja with a few bites (and biting servants was already something he'd proven willing to do, as that was the way he passed on those cursed seals).

However Naruto neither liked nor trusted the Snake Sannin, and those were prerequisites to sharing his bloodline's power.

The explosion of Kyubi's power unleashed in fury eliminated everyone in that clearing, including a very stunned Naruto.

I I I

Author's Notes:

I am wondering if the series degenerating so badly has led to a general discouragement among fans, as it seems there are fewer good Naruto stories getting posted of late.

I say this because reading good Naruto fiction is the best inspiration to writing good Naruto fiction, just as good Harry Potter stories inspire me to write in the Harry Potter universe. And given how much more Harry Potter than Naruto I was writing of late I became curious and started to wonder if the Naruto fandom was losing steam, and if so why.

Frankly other than responses to my Missing Hokage challenge I haven't seen many Naruto stories of late. They've been the bulk of my Naruto reading of late and I'd like to thank them all for fueling this new chapter of Chunin Exam Day! 


	71. Chapter 71

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-One

by Lionheart

I I I

Naruto grinned up at Orochimaru. "Now that would be telling!" he teased.

Instantly he was wrapped up in summoned anacondas, against which Naruto kicked futilely, trying to escape their crushing hold. "It's a contagion! I can pick females out as mates and the bloodline the Kyubi gives me transfers a copy to them!"

"Kukukuku! Interesting," the Snake Sannin gloated. Tayuya found herself shoved forward, and found it the hardest experience of her life to pretend apprehension as this moment she'd been waiting so long for arrived. "Show me. I'd like a better look at the conversion."

Naruto got released from the snakes and Tayuya shot an apprehensive glance to the leader of her titular village, just to show the proper spirit of 'Hey! What are you throwing me into here?'.

Got to keep up appearances.

"What does this bloodline of yours involve?" Orochimaru asked while Tayuya nervously bared her neck.

Naruto grinned. "Why don't you see for yourself?" he taunted.

Then he bit down on Tayuya's neck.

'To [blank] with appearances', Tayuya thought, instantly wrapping her whole body around Naruto and crying out a gleeful "YES!!" as she felt the prized bloodline enter her system at long last, popping out a second set of ears (foxy ones!) and a lovely, long bushy tail!

And WHISKERS! She couldn't tell you how she'd envied those whiskers!! The ability to sense the air movements of somebody sneaking up behind you? Oh YES!!!

No more nervously wondering if Orochi-bastard had snuck up and was watching you? If anybody else in Sound learned she had this ability she'd be the envy of every ninja there! Her red-furred parabolic ears were far from useless, too.

And just wait until she got to up speed on that tail!

"You, master, are going to be teaching me everything about how to use my tail," Tayuya declared warmly into Naruto's ear as she clung to him, crying out joyously as she wrapped every available limb around him and squeezed for all her might.

The other Sound Four actually blushed as they overheard that.

Orochimaru scowled. The medical stuff was fascinating (as the Kitsune Clan members reading Orochimaru's surface thoughts agreed) but the other?

"Why is she having such an emotional reaction?" The snake sannin demanded.

Her long furry tail wrapped around Naruto's neck like a scarf, Tayuya raised her (newly-whiskered!) face and told him, "Because I'm HORNY! And this hot piece of fox meat turns me on! You (censored)!"

The members of the Kitsune Clan listening in on Orochimaru's thoughts also recorded a lot of confusion in his mind over her reaction.

But they still got good data.

Tayuya was back to nuzzling Naruto before her shocked teammates. "Now go be a good (censored), and (censored) off so I can (censored) the (censored) out of this handsome (censored)."

Orochimaru directed a shocked gaze to Tsunade, who shrugged, her own foxy bits waving in the breeze. "What can I say? We want to (censored) him too."

"It's just we've got a little more self-control than your kunoichi has," Shizune blushed beautifully under her own black-furred ears, turning her gaze away in girlish embarrassment.

"Pretty useless for creating an army, unless you want them to (censored) you all of the time," Naruto shrugged, his jacket already pulled off by an amorous redhead. "And then they're not an army so much as a harem."

"It is all about creating mates and babies," Tsunade agreed. "Not soldiers."

Orochimaru scowled, "(censored)!"

Ukon resisted the urge to cover Sakon's ears so he wouldn't overheard any more of this kind of rough talk.

I I I

So good was the data they got out of observing the Snake Sannin's thoughts on observing the creation of the Kitsune bloodline, in fact, they they decided to repeat the attempt next reset. There was really no one else who knew half as much about bloodline creation as he, and it was fascinating to learn what he did as he observed one invested into a normal body.

Suddenly Naruto stopped, asking conversationally. "Say, Orochimaru, you're interested in bloodlines, aren't you? Have you ever wondered what it does to a person to be bitten by the Kyubi?"

It was a calculated risk, but everything with the Snake Sannin was.

The pale sannin blinked from where he was bound. "I would assume that it would involve total destruction of the body being bitten."

"Usually, yes," Naruto agreed. "However, there are one or two circumstances under which it turns out different - ACK!!"

It turned out their carefully timed interruption arrived bang on time as Mizuki came charging into the clearing, two Konoha ANBU on his heels. Orochimaru cloaked everyone in an illusion and before Naruto had time to react, tied him up with his tongue to keep the boy quiet.

The traitorous chunin took the serum that Orochimaru had promised would offer him power, and it did, for a time, turning the former academy teacher into a man/tiger hybrid with impressive abilities...

... before it overcame his system and he died.

Then Naruto's severed head rolled on the grass alongside Shizune's, while Orochimaru leaned close to whisper in Tsunade's ear, "Tell me, teammate, what you hoped to gain by laying this trap for me."

I I I

Yakumo came alert in a heartbeat and leaped out of her bed. This display of activity would have shocked anyone who knew her from before.

But it was reset morning!

Tsunade had been so upset over her old teammate killing her husband and her lifelong friend/apprentice that she hadn't even enjoyed killing him in return. But Orochimaru got a big surprise when he learned that his old teammate was neither old, nor the washed out slacker he'd been told.

Naruto might have trouble killing Orochimaru, but Tsunade didn't. She'd pulled out his spine for that stunt.

Not all of Clan Kitsune had genin level physical abilities. Some of them had been jonin or chunin before the reset. So not everyone had Naruto's problem to the same extend he did.

Although most did, as most of the girls HAD been genin; and truly Yakumo Kurama had the problem worse than most, as she hadn't even been a ninja prior to the resets. Still, even Ayame the ramen waitress had been in better shape than she was! What conditioning her body once had during her brief stint of training under Kurenai had long since gone.

No, moping around in a darkened house does not do anything good for your muscle tone, and Yakumo was out of shape, even for a civilian.

Which was why she'd chosen that to be her peculiar area of study.

Forming handseals, the young heiress of the Kurama main line created two Shadow Clones, setting them off to their routine tasks. One would use her bloodline to incapacitate her three guards with an illusion of Kurenai and Tsunade arriving, informing the guards of a new treatment, not unlike their first visit to the estate, actually. They pretty much repeat that experience for her guards' benefit, leading toward Yakumo's eventual freedom.

The second clone started out by scribing one of the receiving seals for the Flying Thunder God technique in the manor's music room.

They would be testing that later today.

People raised by the Impure Resurrection Technique had molasses-slow thought processes, and didn't volunteer anything, only obeyed instructions, so it had taken positively forever for the Fourth Hokage to instruct Naruto in his signature techniques - and then they'd run into a snag.

Arashi Kazama, the Fourth Hokage, had placed those seals EVERYWHERE! Every room in his house, half the shops in Konoha, all the council chambers, just about every room in the Hokage Tower, and scattered far and wide over Fire Country and every country and village he'd ever visited.

To say nothing of the thousands of those seals he'd thrown over every battlefield since he'd learned the technique.

The problem with that was Naruto wasn't the only instinctive genius in that family, and his father had a gift for telling those seals apart, a gift that he could not train his son in, because he didn't know how he did it himself.

Naruto had once used a thousand clones to go jumping, and he couldn't tell if, after a full reset, any of them had even visited the same place twice. They'd had nothing close to ability to control where they'd arrived.

Lacking Arashi's genius ability to automatically distinguish those seals apart, they were busy having experiments to determine another way - and one of those that would be conducted this reset was to try and see if they could tell the chakra of those who'd scribed the seals apart.

Every girl would scribe one based on her own chakra, and then they'd try to see if they could find their own.

They'd also use clones to do the jumping, because so far there had been no telling where anyone using the Flying Thunder God technique would end up. It might be in a shop, some anonymous wilderness, or among a group of enemy ninja who are as startled to see you as you are to see them.

Of course, that was interesting, both exciting and new, so Flying Thunder God tag was already becoming one of their favorite games. See the Elemental Countries and drop into all sorts of new situations, places, things and enemy ninja trying to kill them in ways none of them had ever seen before.

Hey, boredom was still their worst enemy and this was almost a shock in how it much it was anything but. Even Anko was praising how it was shaking them out of their routines and reawakening their situational awareness to drop in on a sunny beach where Mist kunoichi were sunbathing (and spray them all with freezing water from a jutsu), appear outside a daimyo's castle (and lob in a hundred paint grenades), see shops they'd never seen before (and if they had anything Naruto couldn't already make, buy it so he could take it apart to learn the patterns) or other such fun nonsense.

Really, it was life to begin to have original experiences again, shocking many with just how much they'd missed this.

Sooner or later they'd even learn how to chase each other doing it!

This source of originality also sparked off another. Aided by the incredible resource that was the Uchiha clan library (which they all had a clone reading at all of the time now, and others practicing what they'd learned there), the Kitsune Clan was now exploring jutsu research, hoping to create their own.

Hey, just about every S-rank ninja did it (and, knowing Konoha, Naruto could save the entire country multiple times, slaughter the Akatsuki, overcome legendary foes and STILL remain a genin!). So, since none of them planned to be anything else, they were going to do their own.

Tsunade, who'd already done one in the form of her strength technique, was quick to point out that Naruto already surpassed her in the jutsu creation department.

There was his real transformation, not to mention his Veil had fewer limits, but he'd had the Sexy and Harem techniques invented before he'd exited the Ninja Academy.

She'd never HEARD of another ninja who'd created his own techniques prior to becoming a ninja! Not to mention ones able to knock out a Hokage. But, naturally, Konoha gave him no credit for this legendary feat.

Heck, it was only once they'd begun jutsu research that they'd discovered his Shapeshift ability was not his most impressive original technique.

Naruto did not know the Shadow Clone technique.

Oh, he'd created a VERSION of it! But like his special Transformation, back then he didn't really know how to read, so did his best with the pictures of the handseals and what rough description he could work out of what kanji he could understand, which was not a lot.

It was only once they'd begun to delve into techniques in earnest that Tenten noticed that the version of Shadow Clone he'd taught her, while similar to the official Forbidden technique, wasn't the same and had some rather important differences.

That was when they'd gone to question him and discovered back when the kid had learned the technique he could barely read, and had puzzled it out from only partial instructions - something that his wives now selfishly wished he'd done more of, as every time Naruto'd done it, he'd appeared to substantially improve on the techniques.

His Transformation was actually a solid Shapeshift. His Veil technique covered more area for less cost and could be maintained over greater range, and it turned out his Shadow Clones did not divide his chakra at all. In fact it, strictly speaking, could only be termed an Advanced Shadow Clone because his duplicates were actually more intelligent versions without maximum range (this last was pretty easy to determine when they went Thunder God hopping).

When learning what he thought was the Shadow Clone technique Naruto had somehow generated a puff of chakra then used Shapeshift to transform that chakra into a copy of himself. The cost was pretty high up there, an A-rank drain per clone, but nowhere near as bad as dividing your chakra a thousand different ways.

They were actually thinking of calling it the Kitsune Clone technique, since you needed the clan's bloodline to perform it. The ability to Shapeshift was integral to it, and real transformations were an aspect of his foxy nature.

It turned out poor Konohamaru had only learned a fairly accurate Disguise using the normal Academy Transformation technique when Naruto taught him, not the actual Sexy technique as Naruto had developed it, as that was based upon his ability to Shapeshift, which no non-Kitsune had.

Still, Yakumo was not the type of girl to complain about unique advantages that might keep her, her sisters, their husband, friends or eventual children alive. None of their clan were upset about that, to be honest.

While her clones were taking care of routine tasks, Yakumo went to take her shower. A bath would be nicer, but take longer, and she wanted to rejoin her friends and new family as soon as possible.

And they were family. The Kyubi had devoured the branch house Kurama a few times, enough to have copied her mental illusion ability into the Kitsune Clan bloodline package. So they were as much her family as anybody, and more than the suspicious branch members that had trapped her here!

No, Yakumo would be eternally grateful to her rescuers (besides, there would always be a hot springs soak later - there always was).

Those training illusions had been the start of her wonderful ninja career, but they were not the end of her rapid advancement. She had spent more than a few resets receiving long instruction from Ino, by now the single best user of the Yamanaka clan techniques in the village, and her skills and abilities mated to the Kurama bloodline were just scary!

As one minor demon ought to be able to testify. It took Yakumo less than a second each morning to cast the demon possessing her into an illusion that destroyed its mind, the chakra-construct body following soon after. She took care of that during the middle of shaving her sadly neglected legs (and that took only a handful of seconds, as Naruto had worked out countless grooming techniques he'd shared with the Kitsune clan females).

Demons might not be subject to being physically destroyed, but mentally was an entirely different matter, at least for the small ones. And once they no longer had a mind the chakra that was their bodies dissipated just like a jutsu after it was no longer being sustained. It might leave some traces of what it had done while active, but the energy was gone. Snuffed out like a candle.

Looking better than she ever had pre-resets, Yakumo dried her body with a set of big, fluffy towels (yes, she could do it with techniques, but those took too much moisture and left her skin feeling dry and crackly) and got into the clothes Naruto had prepared for her, and that one of her clones had gone to fetch before she was out of the shower.

Then Yakumo formed an ice mirror, stepped into it, and was gone. One of her clones would remain behind, using puppetry techniques to have her guards standing and alert-seeming for when she brought them out of the illusion of Kurenai and Tsunade visiting, after the illusionary sannin's departure.

Not waking up lying around on the ground would take away one of the few indicators her guards might use to tell they'd been put under one of her mental super illusions. So they would believe the fake Tsunade's report that her new treatment had been a resounding success.

A few days of her clone hanging around the house under observation, and Yakumo would be free of those restrictions at last. And the copy she left to carry out the last of her house arrest would be practicing music in the well-lighted room, while dipping into Naruto's mind to copy his skills in that area.

Nothing wasted, even clones could learn and transfer that back to her.

The other end of Yakumo's Ice Mirror Transport landed her in a medical office with Yugao. The purple haired ANBU would be training her in swords today, but with a special purpose. Tenten would be joining them, distressed over how few of the techniques of her native Mantis Clan in Suna she could master with her present underdeveloped body.

One simply didn't enter the Kitsune Clan to remain mediocre. Yet they all knew their worst limitation was the lack of any lasting physical development between resets.

And, well, Yakumo believed her bloodline gave them the ability to fix that.

It was quite simple, actually. By using her mind affecting illusions she was able to injure or even kill. A person whose mind she subjected to illusions of fire got burns over their body. So, by pairing up her bloodline ability with an illusion of a workout, the body should actually suffer the bruises, strains, exhaustion and fatigue of having actually been through the ordeal, just as it would burn itself if she put someone under an illusion of fire.

Since her illusions were able to affect their real bodies, whatever physical conditioning that happened in the illusion would also happen in the real world on their bodies. They could strengthen their muscles, improve their reflexes and all sorts of things they are normally limited with would be overcome.

That was Stage One, the easy part, and already accomplished. Heck, it hadn't taken anything more than the idea to get that one right. But one workout did not a fit body make. No, the ideal would be to pair this with one of Naruto's training illusions, but two years of intense physical training during only four minutes of real time would kill anyone. The body just was suited to putting up with that level of strain.

Heck, interrogation techniques were more mild in the hurt they inflicted! In fact, they didn't have a combat technique that hurt the body as much as this did. It was disturbing, actually, to watch the body sludge apart like that.

Critical failure of all muscles and connective tissues was just so wrong! Pity they couldn't inflict it on an unwilling target, but Naruto's training illusions didn't work like that.

Thoughts about a combat technique aside (although it would be a deadly one) they had some rather large issues left to deal with before they could use it for the purpose for which it was designed - overcoming their limitations on physical development.

Still, even if they couldn't jump right to the end, there was all sorts of mid-level ground to cover. So they'd backed off a bit and instead of cramming two years of intensive workouts into four minutes of realtime, they went back to an earlier stage of those illusions and gave their subject three days of physical training into one second of real time.

That, too, led to an almost incapacitating level of muscle and connective tissue damage, but at least it wasn't deadly. It was when the regeneration aspect of their bloodline kicked in that started out the new level of research.

Simply speaking, workouts caused damage, and regeneration fixed damage. Once they could find an adequate balance they could, at the very least, strike up pattern they could use in an accelerated training program, making leaps toward a better conditioned body in far less time than it would usually take.

That was a dream that Yakumo lived for.

Ever since her first experience with her new clan she'd been amazed at how unselfish they were. They freely shared techniques and training tips, things that no ninja parted with lightly. The physical things she could see why they shared so freely, since none of those lasted very long, going away with the next reset; but one's abilities were the lifeblood of a ninja!

The amount of trust inherent in teaching her so much, especially so soon, had amazed the Kurama clan heir and now she desperately wanted to return that and contribute on her own.

Heaven, she decided, must be very like how the Kitsune Clan was now, with everyone helping each other all of the time. No meanness, no recriminations, just honest, helpful friendliness at all hours, in every circumstance.

And hell, she was certain, could not be much different than the life she'd led before this, where the constant bitter loneliness was broken only by visits of hard faced people who wished her nothing good.

No, having been rescued from that, she'd do anything to make her new family happy. Their joy literally brought pleasure to the girl, and she wanted to do as much for them as they'd already done for her, and the only thing she could think of would be to tear down their one remaining barrier to greatness.

They were already great ninja, but in her opinion that was dwarfed by how great they were as people. They made her happy, and that happiness doubled when she could make them happy in return.

So she would do so.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Yay! Chibiusa is back!! The private server went down a year and a half ago when the owner was going through some moves, but now it's back! Upgraded with the latest expansion, even!

Ok, so the owner gave his twelve year old son every legendary item under the sun (and a few he had to invent, because the existing ones weren't good enough for his boy) so the kid gets bored with soloing Ironforge and spends all his time hunting the other players, so you can't even do a Christmas quest without having a super-GM-Twinked lvl 80 powering down on you, which is threatening to shut down the server all over again because no one else wants to play - and this confuses the guy running the server why?

Anyway, what do I care about that? Chibiusa is back! And I can't tell you how inspiring that is (not to mention the ability to teleport all over the place gives her a small measure of security).

Other people on public servers get excited about mounts. Why should I care about that? On this private one they've enabled the '.modify speed' command to everyone so you can race around at whatever pace you like from one (the regular game speed) down to fractions or all of the way up to ten! A regular starting mount goes one point six, for comparison. Although anything above three is a little hard to control for normal purposes (which is not to say I don't cross-country at eight, when I have to walk somewhere).

You can leap like you wouldn't believe at those speeds, too. Most rivers I cross without even getting my feet wet. It's not unusual to go thirty yards on a bound on speed three.

Now I don't know why it is that having Chibiusa back came at the same time as this story suddenly being so easy to write again, but I am glad for both of them. As I'd missed each of these sources of joy in my life.

I hope you enjoy them too.

Merry Christmas!! 


	72. Chapter 72

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-Two

by Lionheart

I I I

"Good Morning, Orochi-bastard!!" Tayuya flung herself out of her tent with a spin and a flourish, foxy bits waving in the air as she twirled.

Jaws dropped among the other Sound Four. Orochimaru (who had been sipping his morning cup of tea) looked puzzled, murderous, but puzzled.

The girl started joyously bouncing through warm-up stretches. "You know what? Today just seems like a great day to turn traitor to you and go off to join your enemies! Too bad for you they already know all of your plans."

The Snake Sannin blinked.

She posed cutely. "After all, if they are willing to teach me the fabulous Flying Thunder God technique and able to do so under your nose just what else have they been getting away with that you aren't aware of?"

His eyes bugged out as he recognized the familiar seal scribed on the tent behind her.

When she vanished in a flash of yellow Orochimaru actually felt scared.

Moments later a patch of sand reared up and formed Gaara's face. Fixing him with a cold glare, it told the Snake Sannin, "You are not the Kazekage. I have no intention of betraying an allied village for you."

That was when a messenger bird dropped a package right in their midst.

Hiding behind three demonic gates nearby, Orochimaru actually had to order one of his Sound Four to go open the message, figuring however bad it was, he had to know what else about his plans had exploded in his face.

Jirobo actually went to cursed seal form two and maximum strength before he was willing to dare open the package. When he did his face turned even redder, if that was possible.

"What is it?" the pale Sannin demanded impatiently from behind cover.

His monstrous servant turned back to him, positively mortified, a sheepish look of embarrassment on his huge, cursed form face as he held the opened package in one hand. "Three fashion magazines, notifying you that your subscriptions have begun. A box of tampons, and a very frank book entitled 'What is Going on With My Body?' that appears to be intended for preteen girls just entering puberty."

Somehow, he didn't know how, Orochimaru's body was suddenly wracked by abdominal cramps.

I I I

"At least you could have let us scribe explosive seals on the tampons," Yugao objected, not so strenuously.

"Nah! It's better this way," Naruto overruled her, bouncing along happily. "A threat is something he could understand. That would reduce it to a simple, 'Aha! They were trying to trap me into blowing myself up!' But this way he gets to wonder what we were up to - and that confusion would be worse for him than even if we'd succeeded in stuffing him full of explosive tampons!"

"At least tell us how you managed the cramps," Yugao pleaded.

"Simple medicine!" Naruto chortled gleefully, bouncing along even higher. "As you know, he's immune to most every poison, but those act to disrupt and destroy the body. So instead I dosed him with something that was meant to activate the body's natural flows, working WITH his system to restore the proper functions of that body he's wearing. Only the energy of a creek is one thing, but you dam it up and it becomes a lake. Release THAT and you've got problems no one who'd seen the tiny creek could even imagine. With all of the pent-up energy of those periods he's skipped since taking over, I think he's about to go through the mother of all feminine cycles."

"Ouch," the purple haired ANBU winced in unintended sympathy. Having been through her own periods it was as automatic as men crossing their legs when seeing another man get hit by a groin-shot.

"Yeah!" The blond genin agreed, gleefully. "For a man who's never had one, he gets to enjoy the pent up energy of a couple of years of skipped periods all expressed in one! Isn't that fantastic?"

Yugao had never before felt sorry for the Snake Sannin. She turned green, manifesting a fake smile. "Yeah. Great."

"Yeah, and the next two or three aren't going to be picnics, either!" The boy crowed excitedly. "Can you imagine all that hitting someone whose never had one before?"

Poor Yugao turned a slightly greener shade, trying hard not to feel sorry for their enemy. All the while she was thinking killing the poor bastard would have been so much kinder.

Naruto stood posing, with hands on his hips. "Next time I'm going to adapt that stuff Hana is working on for stimulating milk production in mothers who don't start on their own, and including that. I wonder how the Snake Sannin will feel, trying to impersonate the leader of Hidden Sand while lactating? I mean, sure, he can wear a false skin over his face, but what is he going to do about the two wet spots on his shirt?"

One green ANBU fought off the urge to go tell Tsunade to perform a mercy-killing on her old comrade.

I I I

"Naruto? Can we talk?"

Such was the power of that dread statement feared by men worldwide that even Naruto, who had nothing to fear from the females in his life, winced at it. He looked up from where he'd been using an Earth jutsu to give the Fourth Hokage a giant stone sign reading "Will perform A-rank missions for food" to find Sakura standing there beside him, looking oddly peaceful, even though she had tear tracks down from both eyes.

She'd been behaving morosely lately, even avoiding him, so this was a switch.

Sakura Haruno, the brashest girl he had EVER known (and that was including some real wowsers, like Anko, in the mix, so was not a trite statement) was behaving bashfully towards him?

Naruto's guard instantly went up. When girls were being unpredictable they were at their most dangerous.

The pink haired girl stammered on. "I... I just think you ought to... to... you know..." she raised her eyes to meet his tearfully, then blurted. "I don't think you should restore my memories anymore!" she practically shouted.

You could have knocked Naruto over with a feather.

Now, naturally, when a girl is upset the LAST thing she wants to do is explain her reasons to the object of her ire. Luckily, Naruto had not been awash in a sea of women without learning a thing or two about how they worked, and had her bent over a massage table within moments.

Nothing female could resist his entreaties when he had them on a massage table. However, Sakura actually fought him, as in FOUGHT him! Trying to pull out a kunai and everything, so determined was she to resist giving out any information on the subject of her vital pronouncement.

Of course, by now he had more than a bit more training than her and all it took was a flick of ninja wire to securely bind her to the massage table... whereupon she immediately burst out crying.

Naruto was thinking she was just determined to be difficult until at last she sobbed, "You have never, EVER touched me before!!"

And the lad had to admit this was true. In fact a good portion of each reset was spent trying to avoid Sakura in a number of ingenious ways. But it had never struck him before that he'd never once given her the massage that all of his other girls took as standard rewards for their typically good behavior.

"It's just, well, I didn't want you to get any ideas," the boy admitted, softly rubbing her feet. No need to get intense yet.

The girl broke out in fresh rounds of sobbing.

When at length she could speak again Sakura could no longer meet his eyes, gazing around morosely as she made her case. So he asked, moving up to knead her shoulders, "Are you going to tell me what's wrong now?"

"It wasn't supposed to BE this way!!!" the girl broke out blubbering. "You were supposed to love me! You always did before."

Naruto had already opened his mouth to let her down gently, telling her he didn't anymore, and his reasons why. But she beat him to it. "But now you don't. It's obvious you don't. And nothing I can do could encourage you to."

They both flushed at that pronouncement. Sakura had gone through a phase wherein she'd decided that, having as many close female friends as he did, it was obvious he was a pervert - and to get him interested in her, she'd come out and openly encouraged him to get perverted with her, offering herself to any form of depravity he could want, thinking by doing so that she'd fill a niche in his life. After all, his other wives had considerable self-respect, so if she took over the things they wouldn't, she'd have a place. Neither Naruto nor she had ever been more embarrassed when she was making those offers.

"Haruno..." he started to sputter, before he realized that he'd switched to the impersonal clan name for her long ago. No more shouts of 'Sakura-chan' for her! No, that had ended long ago, and now he started to see some of what that had meant from her end, when he caught her wince.

"I know I deserved that," she admitted. "I did nothing right by you, and even now my attempts to make you see past that are only driving you away, so I think you'd just be happier without me in your life." She concluded this statement miserably, unable to meet his eyes.

"You'd be there anyway," he remarked reasonably, still working her shoulders.

"Yes, but that's my OTHER self," the depressed girl sighed. "And she doesn't know how wonderful you are, so would not feel terrible over not having you. Also, I know I never treated you well before, but at least you know how to handle that. And... and I think you prefer having me as your adversary and a Sasuke-obsessed fangirl anyway. At least you know how to deal with that person. You can tease and play pranks her - things you'd feel guilty doing to me. But she won't remember or care," here the girl whispered softly, "plus, she deserves way worse than you'd ever actually do to her."

Once more you could've knocked Naruto over with a feather.

"I think," the girl choked back a sob, "that you'd enjoy dropping her naked into all sorts of embarrassing situations, right?"

She tried to venture a brave, encouraging smile, but it came out sickly and wan.

Naruto was now seriously concerned, concerned enough to stop the massage and use the Yamanaka clan techniques to get to the bottom of this, and what he found was no deception. Sakura was giving up on him for his happiness' sake because she believed that would be better for him. There was, however, also a substantial component of wanting out of her own miserable life, always wanting yet never having him.

She had basically accepted the suicide of her current self in the only way that a person could die in these resets - the cancellation of her returning memories, in hopes that it would make her escape her pain and make him happier. And she was trying to bring that about.

Seeing her secrets were outed, the pinkette grew bold in the way only those who had accepted their imminent demise could do. Her voice actually grew gentle and kind, a tone he'd never heard from her before. "Naruto, to most people 'love' means 'sex', rutting around like animals experiencing physical pleasures. That's nothing like what you've got. Okay, you and your wives have sex, that's obvious and appropriate, but to you that's extra, something you add on top of what you've already got."

She sighed, casting her gaze down. "To everyone else our age sex is just a sport, a way to have fun not unlike drinking or video games. But it doesn't MEAN anything to them! Now obviously I don't go poking my nose into your bedrooms, but even so it's obvious to me that's totally unlike what you and your wives have got. That's why my offers of 'any perversion you wanted, no limits' got rejected. The way you glow with tenderness and understanding as you treat each other is unlike anything I've ever seen before."

She turned her face away from him, afraid to see his eyes as she admitted, "Do you know most couples fight? I don't think you'd realized that. Also most girls get jealous if their boyfriends see anybody else, even if it's innocent." Her tones dropped low as she confessed, "I can't tell you how many hours I spent, wasted, lying in wait for such an opportunity. I was so sure that you'd have a fight, and I'd jump right in on your side and support and comfort you. I'd be the good guy for once, and you'd actually fall in love with me again."

She gave off a bitter chuckle. "I was so foolish, then."

Naruto's eyes had grown wide over these admissions.

Sakura opened herself to him totally. "You know why it's hopeless for me to pursue you? You have no NEEDS! You have nothing you lack that I can give you. I was so sure you'd have a fight, any fight at all. It seems like you've got hundreds of wives sometimes, somebody had to offend you ONCE hadn't they?"

Here she broke down sobbing once again, yet didn't stop speaking. The dam had burst, and she knew she'd never get another opportunity. If things worked out the way she wanted, she'd never be able to. The girl who was hurting wouldn't exist anymore. So if she didn't confess it all now it would never be told, and the wound, somewhere, somehow, would never stop hurting. "But it's not LIKE that with you! You love everyone around you so totally they have no reason to feel jealous or ashamed! None of them want to hurt any of the others because that would upset you, and there is nothing they'd like less than to upset you!"

Tears were flowing freely as she looked at him, memorizing his face this one, last time. Even thought it would soon be gone forever. "None of them want to injure each other, because you care about all of them! And because you love them, they are nice to each other all of the time! Do you know how RARE that is? It DOESN'T HAPPEN!! Except with you," she finished in a mumble.

Here her face looked positively tragic. "I've tried to belong to that, but I couldn't. I tried being nice, only everyone held me at arm's length because I'd hurt you. I..." here she sobbed, breaking out in a fresh flood of tears. "I WANT to belong to you! I WANT to be nice to you! I want to be a part of that happy, glowing community that always surrounds you! But I CAN'T!! I've tried EVERYTHING, and I just CAN'T!! No one would let me, and I don't have any idea how to make it up to you so I'd have a chance. So I just was to go away and stop hurting. That's not too much to ask, is it?"

Seeing refusal in his eyes, she smiled miserably, pleading, "Naruto, all I do is make you miserable. This is the first unselfish decision I've made in my life. You can stop avoiding me, because I won't be after you. Everyone will be happier. Please let it stand."

Now Naruto sighed. Having been unprepared for the emotional blast, which had obviously been building for a while now, he had to spend a few moments to collect himself.

"Just let me go," she pleaded.

"I'd been talking this over with my wives," he admitted. "We'd all agreed that it would probably be less awkward or everyone to stop restoring your memories."

Sakura gave him a very sad smile. "I'd asked Ayame to bring it up."

"She did." He nodded.

"Just one thing before I go?" she pleaded.

His eyebrows went up.

Sakura nervously licked her lips, but couldn't look away. "It may not be my first kiss. You've told me about how I've kissed Gaara and others, even that Uchiha jerk, in other resets. But this will be the first for this me, and that's what counts. Could I please... just once before I go?"

She hesitantly puckered up, then dropped it when he didn't look like he was responding.

Naruto himself was deep in thought. At great length he responded by asking, "So let me get this straight. You want to stop my being uncomfortable around you, and your plan to do that is to stop existing?"

Meek apology flooded her features, but she was unrelenting. "I think it's for the best, Naruto."

He thought for several more moments, before declaring. "You know what the secret to my happiness as a married man is?"

She shook her head, wondering over the change of topic.

The blonde boy decided. "It's very simple. Each one of us holds the happiness of others as more important than our own. People only lie or cheat or steal to get advantage over their neighbor, and that only happens when they think inside that their success is more important than the other person's. Being willing to suffer so that others can enjoy greater rewards is the opposite of that - and that's what we have."

She smiled gently. "Thank you for telling..."

He cut her off. "But that's just what you did! You've passed the test! For all thing long while you've been improving, so we couldn't just throw you away, even though it was uncomfortable having you around. Only just now you came across the secret - you were willing to sacrifice your own aims so that we could be happy."

The boy sliced the wires holding her down and picked her up in his arms, bridal-style. "And, well, that's the whole ticket right there. Love is kindness, and selfish behavior destroys it. So you had to learn unselfishness before we were willing to trust you with more."

He leaned in and smooched her, causing her world to spin. "It may not be far, but you've started down the right path. And once you've done that, the only thing I can do is help you on your way."

"You mean?" she started out wondering.

"Keep it up and your probationary period will be over," he admitted. "You'll be one of the Clan, with full status and privileges - bloodline too, if only you can continue on the path you've just started."

She was too shocked to speak.

Naruto grinned. "And that does mean cuddling and massages and things while you learn. After all, if you are trying to build up my happiness it is only right that I spend my time building up yours. That's why unselfishness works so well. Selfish people injure each other striving for advantage. But we don't do that. Instead we spend our time building each other up, which gives us all of the advantages without any of the injuries. It's hard, but it's worth it. Now that you've started, it is only right to help you learn our way."

I I I

It having been mentioned how much fun they'd had exploring the exciting new possibilities of Sand, several of the senior Kitsune were using the Yamanaka family techniques to read the minds of genin teams there for the chunin exams, to learn about their home villages and get an idea of how to comport themselves to infiltrate those villages.

And it should not have been surprising they ran across some surprises doing so.

"The Village of Hidden Rain is in the midst of a civil war." Temari declared.

"What are the sides? How are things divided?" Ino perked up. She'd been reading about Grass village, which so far had been pretty boring.

Temari rubbed her eyes free of distaste. "Well, it seems pretty much to be a power grab by one man. But he's somehow got the Rowling Clan working for him."

"The ROWLINGS!!? How did THAT happen?" Naruto stopped his own explorations to respond to that announcement.

"Could someone explain for those us of who've never heard of them?" Kin chided gently.

Naruto, now having read the entire Konoha public library eight or nine times by now (along with every book and magazine he could find scattered around the village) was now among their more knowledgeable members, started to explain, only to get beaten to the punch by Temari. "They're a clan whose bloodlimit has been denounced by every ethical ninja as dangerously unpredictable and contrary. They're no use in battle. They only cause chaos on all sides together."

"Ok, fine for a summary. But what does their bloodlimit DO?!?" Tenten entered this discussion with her own curiosity aroused.

Naruto rubbed his eyes as if tying to clear out a nightmare. "You know there are several major bloodlines that are all sight-based? Well, the Rowlings are auditory. But it's kind of reversed, instead of hearing very well or having special ear powers, it's anyone who hears THEM that has a problem."

"Sooo, what is the problem?" Kin prompted, leaning forward.

"Mass confusion." Temari answered. "Anyone under the sound of a Rowling's voice forgets who their friends are, believes their worst enemies to be heroes, and their most precious allies to be scum. They hate people they should love and love people they should hate. It goes deep and lasts long, and only gets worse the longer you listen to one of them. You'd seek out and marry the absolute worst person for you, name your children after your worst abusers, and in general behave like a complete and utter madman losing all sense of right and wrong - and feeling depressed about it most of the time."

"Sounds effective!" Tenten was impressed.

Temari groaned, having had to deal with the Kishimoto clan she was NOT impressed by the Rowlings. Why couldn't some people understand that not all bloodlines were good? "It is, and it isn't. Like I said, it affects ANYONE! And by that I should properly say EVERYONE who can hear the Rowling, including the Rowling herself. You can't use it in a fight because the people on your own side go mad just as much as your opponents. Loyalties are completely forgotten. Teachers launch personal vendettas against students who'd never met them before. People forget oaths, lose all sense of scruples, lose so much sense of self they are apt to misspell their own names, and because it works on the Rowling just as much as anyone else, if you had one loyal enough to send alone against your enemies, she'd switch and become your enemy to come back and haunt you. There's no effective way to use them. They just cause chaos and confusion and misery to all the people around them. The only defense is not to hear them, and that generally means staying as far away from them as possible. Once the specifics of their power got out, no ninja village would allow them entry into their countries. There's just no way to control them."

"You keep saying 'her' all of the time you describe this." Kin noted.

Temari sighed. "It's a female-only blood power, arising only in the women of the line, and then only after they get married for the first time - which makes it easy for the young ones to hide, and thus practically impossible to stamp out the clan. Part of me is surprised anyone found a GROUP of them!"

"The first time?" Tenten's eyebrows raised.

"Their 'gift' is such they always drive their husbands away sooner or later." The Sand kunoichi informed her friends, then sighed again. "As you might suspect, there was rampant speculation for a long while that Itachi Uchiha ran afoul of a Rowling on one of his missions. Every village thought that was the most likely scenario. It would do more than practically anything else to explain why he suddenly hated his family and loved his enemies, killed those who loved him and deserted the place where he'd once been respected and honored. That behavior is actually typical of anyone under a Rowling's voice - and a big reason why all villages are united in trying to stamp out that bloodline whenever they can."

Naruto, who'd been thinking, now interjected, "So we have two big questions: How did anyone get a hold of a group of them, and how do they ORGANIZE them?!? That's always been the big trouble with Rowlings. Backstabbing and turning traitor are inherent to their nature, and not just once, but over and over again. You could never tell who's side they're on, or for how long. They practically define the tool that will always turn and strike its user. So how did anyone get some pointed the same way as each other?"

"Most likely they didn't." Temari concluded. "More probable than control was simply getting a bunch and dropping them all in one area. They'd cause so much chaos by their mere presence that whatever organization you wanted destroyed would be shredded as friends turned on each other. There's no limit. Boys turn against their own fathers, and girls against their parents, while idolizing their worst enemies. They'd torture and brutalize each other 'For The Greater Good', get stalker like love affairs for girls that belong to groups you despise, save the lives of people who murdered your parents, commit suicide to please old men who'd kept you imprisoned and treated like a mushroom your whole life, go on long camping vacations while people who depend on you are dying, and act on all forms of insanity. You couldn't find a more effective way to destroy a nation. It's mass hysteria."

I I I

Author's Notes:

Well, that was a challenge, and not for the reasons you may be thinking, either. Anyway, I am glad that chapter is over.

And I hope you'll forgive me teasing another famous author by naming a disastrous bloodlimit after her. But it FITS!

And I do like to introduce bloodlimits that are not all benefits. 


	73. Chapter 73

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-Three

by Lionheart

I I I

Kakashi arrived at the Memorial Stone thinking to get in some contemplation before heading off to meet his genin at the exams, when he caught sight of someone sitting on the stone.

It was a young boy, probably a genin, and he looked...

Kakashi dropped his Icha Icha in shock.

Obito Uchiha hopped down from the top of the rock, morphing from the child he was when he graduated to the slightly older form he was when he died, and it was in that heartbeat that Kakashi realized he could still see the Stone through his friend's body. He raised his headband, revealing his Sharingan, but saw only the same thing.

Obito was back as a ghost.

"Are you surprised?" the spirit gave him a cheeky grin, spreading his hands wide. "What? You come here to commune for hours each day. Why should you be shocked to get through?"

"Obito..." The legendary Copy Cat ninja began reverently, a smile on his face, only to be cut off in shock when the spirit scowled at him and he detected a ghostly residual of what could only be... killing intent?

And the ghost was furious, glaring at him, arms crossed. "I don't have much time, Hatake, so I'll get right to the point: Why are you injuring me?"

Kakashi's original and borrowed eyes both widened in denial. "NO! Obito!" He reached out, imploring his friend to believe.

But the spirit grew no less hostile. "I only activated my Sharingan on my death, Kakashi. You know that. I lived all my life without it. I was a stranger to my clan, all but cast out over my failure. Yet you lavish attention on the Clan Head's son and claim you are honoring ME?!? You train him in a bloodline I never used and think by doing so you are making up your debt to ME? No." The ghostly image stepped closer to his teammate. "Our team consisted of a self-centered genius, his fangirl, and the loser. Tell me which I was, Kakashi."

Seeing his fellow ninja too paralyzed by fear and shame to answer, the ghost nodded and did so for him. "Yes, that's right. I was the loser, the dope. The guy who loved the fangirl, but got ignored by her in favor of the genius prodigy she adored, while the genius snubbed her in his arrogance. And what is that self-centered genius doing now, Kakashi? He's training another self-centered genius, and ignoring the boy who is like I was. The outcast and the loser gets despised by the genius again, Kakashi. Only this time the teacher is ignoring him as well. Our teacher was never that unfair, Kakashi. He taught us all equally. Yet you've ignored the boy who is like I was, you've cast aside both him and the girl. And to do what? You are pandering to YOURSELF Kakashi! Don't even claim you are trying to make up to me when all you can do is repeat the injuries you gave me back then. You never loved Rin, but you kept her away from me. You never taught or helped me, even when you could have done so easily. You just proclaimed I was useless. Now there is a boy very much like you who is doing those same things to a boy who is very much like I was, and what do you do? You help your copy, your younger clone injure the boy like me, and claim by doing so you are making things up to me. Don't ever die, Kakashi, because I could never stand to see you show up here; and I hope and I pray every day that they prepare a special place in Hell for you!"

And with that the spirit vanished.

Not much later a Very disheveled and VERY drunk Kakashi stumbled in to the exam center just long enough to press a mess of sealing scrolls into Naruto's arms, and when Sasuke reached over to take them away Kakashi PUNCHED the prodigy he'd never said a hard word to before, knocking the Uchiha down, mumbling how they were not for him, that he was "repaying his debt" before he drunkenly stumbled away from his trio of confused genin.

The sealing scrolls were filled with jutsu and training manuals. Naruto even found the Dog Summoning contract among them. It was everything Kakashi knew how to give.

Standing in the background, Ino smirked. Drilling into Kakashi's memories with her own clan techniques to retrieve the needed information useful for making the mental illusion generated by the Kurama bloodline flawless had worked. He had been left without a single 'tell' to alert him it was not real.

Of COURSE he'd tested it with his Sharingan! But not even the most advanced bloodline could see through an illusion when that illusion was generated by the victim's own mind! The more advanced the senses, the more advanced the illusion in that case as the brain created the extra detail to convince itself!

And people who had those advanced bloodline senses learned to trust them, so if you could fool those the illusion would almost always stand unquestioned - He saw it with his Sharingan, ergo it must be real.

Ino smirked. It was a good combination. She'd have to see who else it worked on.

Naruto shrugged and created a couple hundred extra clones to go unseal those manuals and read those scrolls. Actually, as it would turn out, the shocking thing to him was how much of what was on them he already knew.

I I I

Later that day the blond haired genin pondered. All through the written test he'd had clones popping, transmitting all they'd learned from Kakashi's scrolls back to him, and that had brought up an interesting point.

There really wasn't much he could learn around Konoha anymore.

Naruto had picked up all of the ninja training it was possible to get out of the Konoha Ninja Academy. All those resets spent learning with Iruka had given him the bulk of it, and by now he'd transformed into enough other students, asking questions and seeking personal advice to pick up everything the other instructors knew how to teach as well. Plus, being able to transform meant he'd been able to go out and buy the textbooks, the actual ones instead of the modified 'special' versions the teachers had given him to sabotage him. He'd not only bought the required books, but all of the optional, supplemental and recommended reading as well as the special case and niche stuff meant for ninja who were seriously into specializing in a certain field, and he'd read all of them dozens of times. Heck, the last couple of passes through he'd made a game out of correcting the spelling, grammatical and content errors.

If there was anything that Konoha village considered basic enough to teach genin hopefuls, he knew it. And with Tsunade becoming Kazekage so often, most of the stuff Suna taught their ninja he already knew too, and it wouldn't be long before he knew the rest of what they had there, either.

All of the specialized sand training for their wind techniques may have been boring, but no more than leaf floating, and he was nearing his mastery now. He was even learning how to create his own giant fan, like Temari's, using the scrolls her mother had left behind on those crafting techniques.

Heck, with Tsunade as their Kazekage she could order Suna to teach her husband and sister wives not only the basic stuff, but up to more advanced levels as well, anything that wasn't clan secrets, basically. Enough to become a jonin several times over, at least, and for clan-specific stuff, as Tenten (aka Mikanohana's) family by marriage they were already learning the Mantis secrets. So shortly he'd know more about being a ninja of Hidden Sand than he did about being one of Hidden Leaf!

So, the question became, what next?

As Naruto was turning a fork he'd made over in his hands, thinking hard during their after-test lunch, he noticed how much work he'd put into that simple bit of cutlery, bringing up the thought of how many skills he had to hide from his daimyo now, when suddenly he had his answer.

I I I

"Daimyo-sama," the Naruto-clone transformed into an old man pressed his face into the floor of the Lightning Lord's court in full prostration after the ceremony of his formal presentation was over. "I crave a boon of thee."

The Daimyo of Lightning Country smiled down on the craftsman. With his skills the glory and grandeur of his court would shortly outshine even his most impressive rivals, and Lightning would be known as a land of wealth, as well as one of power. That was more than enough to put him in the mood of granting the old craftsman favors to keep him happy.

"What is it you wish?"

The old craftsman gestured aside at the crowd of young girls kneeling behind him. "Lord, I have a large family of many nieces and cousins. My son I would gladly train in my work to follow after me, but these many girls have not the gifts nor the temperament to forge cunning works in the art of metal. Still, I would not leave them penniless or without a trade. Since they are not worthy of a noble marriage and I cannot teach them my own specialty, their mothers have asked that they be taught as ninja so their futures may be secure."

"So be it." The damiyo motioned with his fan aside to one of his aides. "See to it they are transported swiftly to the village of Hidden Cloud and enrolled in the their ninja program."

"It is the middle of their school year," the aide half-objected.

The daimyo got a little shirty, as the craftsman's request was an easy one and he didn't like being balked over filling it. "Then see to it they have tutors to bring them up to speed with the rest of their classmates. GO!"

Transformed as female, Naruto fought off a smirk as she was led along with the rest of the Clan Kitsune girls to go off and train in Cloud. Heck, with the daimyo as a backer they'd be put on the fast-track, getting the best help and instructors, thus learning their secrets most quickly.

One month of that instruction, repeated a few times, along with what they were doing to dredge the secrets of their home villages out of the foreign entries to the chunin exam, and it wouldn't be long before they could pass as locals and even begin pulling off that trick Naruto had used to learn the ninja academy martial art style back home - replacing other students to learn the lessons on their levels, gradually replacing better and better ones until you had all the knowledge that village's academy could teach you. Only in this case applied to more than martial arts.

In fact, if this worked out well she'd have to see about trying the same thing with Rock and Mist and maybe the other villages. They could even excuse some amount of ninja knowledge by claiming to have once been a wandering ninja clan who'd had a craftsman skilled enough to land a permanent position in court and get his clan a home, and thus get into more advanced classes.

Best of all, by making his craftsman persona an old man, he even got out of any potential marriages to noble daughters!

I I I

While looking into other villages Naruto had reached his own epiphany.

He needed projects to work on, as he'd just completed inventing the Sticky Capture Clone, which was like a water or a mud clone only it blew itself apart into fluid that matched the Sticky Capture Field, in this case coating all of the surfaces around it (unless you had a chakra barrier, based on the chakra pads protecting your feet from the Sticky Capture Field, to keep yourself safe), and they'd already cured all of the ailments in Konoha hospital.

A boy has to keep busy, and having ignited some creative fire, he wanted to keep inventing as much as possible, so was strictly rationing how much he allowed himself to read out of the newly discovered Uchiha Library.

Techniques were good, but ones he'd invented on his own were always better, and besides that was known stuff, with known counters. He didn't want to be just another Uchiha, collecting what was already out there (ok, that was nice, and he enjoyed it - especially since he now had access to the techniques he'd wanted all along) but if that was the limit he'd never rise to what he could be.

All of the greatest ninja created at least one unique technique, and he didn't want to be solely remembered for changing into naked women all of the time.

All of that explained WHY he was experimenting. WHAT he was experimenting on was also useful, and in this case he'd had a thought - while making his armor his mind had wandered and a clone elsewhere had popped. It was during the middle of some practice, training in puppetry techniques, and before the lad with the wandering attention knew it, those thoughts of arranging new joints for his experimental puppet had infringed on what he was absently doing with his own armor, and he'd mixed the two, spoiling both.

But that had led to an amazing concept. Namely, puppets could only move because of the chakra strings animating them. They had no muscles, bones or tendons to call their own. They were just vaguely human shaped and animated by the skill of the puppeteer.

So, his armor was vaguely human shaped too. He could animate that as a puppet. But what if he animated that while he was wearing it? Could he not use the animating force to improve his own physical conditioning? Adding a puppet's strength to his own, he could be stronger and faster.

Essentially it would be a set of power armor, his own body's force magnified by the assistance of chakra-animated metal he wore as armor. It already had the shape. Theoretically, that way his own physical conditioning, or lack thereof, would no longer be his chief limiting factor, it would be his skill at animated the puppet/armor he wore. And that was something he could practice up to extreme heights using clones.

The idea was too intriguing. He just had to try it!

Across the village, another Naruto hanging out with Haku came to the same conclusions as they were practicing their Ice techniques together. One of the moves she wanted him to learn was forming a flexible layer of ice around his body to serve as armor, and one of the more difficult things to do was to get it to where it could flex and move so as not to hinder his own actions, while stopping the blows of his enemy.

Clones armored this way could take a terribly amount of punishment without dispelling, so long as the armor never got breached.

However learning how to flex the ice layers so as not to hinder himself Naruto naturally put too much power into the technique and crushed the glass of milk he was trying to pick up instead of lifting it in his hand.

Haku was quick to scold him over it, but Naruto's eyes were already gleaming. His hand had moved gently, but the ice had flexed too powerfully, crushing the glass into fragments.

Okay, doing that thing when you don't want to had to be stopped and trained out of you. But using it when you did want to crush something? Or throw a too-powerful punch?

He'd just invented a strength augmenting technique. One that would work for the clan, rather than Tsunade's strength augmenting one, which required changes to one's body via chakra surgery that their regeneration stopped.

She'd invented it that way to prevent an Uchiha from stealing her signature strength, and was one of the world's best medics, so knew enough about the body to know how to augment it without harming herself. But so far it had prevented her regenerating clan members from learning it.

Now? Well, perhaps they no longer needed her version.

After that reset was over that the two clones combined their knowledge and realized they'd invented the same thing twice, using different methods each time. Powerarmor was powerarmor, whether ice or metal.

Which, of course, meant they had to invent a version using wood, which they could also create, flex and control.

I I I

Naruto had finally finished translating that English book on Chakra control, and it turned out to have nothing to do on chakra at all.

It was about flight.

Naruto had had no idea there were even rules on that sort of thing. The ninja of his world had tried and failed to fly since the beginning of chakra. Some of their very earliest experiments on elemental manipulation were on trying to fly, and all had failed. Building giant invisible pillars of chakra to stand on, flinging oneself into the air with massive bursts of chakra, and makeshift chakra wings had all spectacularly failed. Eventually such experiments had ceased altogether, and that was one of the main things no ninja of any village had ever learned how to do.

But here, laid out in purest simplicity, was the rules on how flying worked. Naruto could even see, given these rules, how the previous experiments had failed. The bursts of chakra gave thrust but no lift, and thus would exhaust even the strongest kage before getting anything more useful than a giant leap (although now he knew where the origins of the ninja leaping techniques had probably found their start). While the wings were almost certainly the wrong shape, and so would not have performed adequately.

The closest a ninja ever came to flying was what Temari did on her giant fan, and even that was imperfect, a slow fall imitating a dropped leaf of feather more than actual flight.

But here, laid out in excruciating detail, was how to do it right. Someone with Naruto's chakra reserves could hop on a fan like Temari's and simply never land, speeding off to places like Sand village or Cloud.

Actually, he had no true idea as to what kind of range or speed he could get out of this. He'd never tried, and it would take some time to work out the new techniques that would be required for it to function.

But he, and the rest of Clan Kitsune, were going to take flight.

I I I

Almost immediately upon enrolling in other village's ninja academies Naruto had a flood of new ideas for his own projects. For example, you couldn't be a ninja of Hidden Mist without learning a thing or two about water manipulation. And since he was now, well, he did.

Other villages taught how to walk on water, while the academy for Hidden Mist taught how they did, breaking it down so the process was understood, not just performed. Water has a tendency to stick together where possible. Its own weight made certain shapes impossible, but nonetheless that trait of sticking to itself was called 'surface tension' and was something like a skin.

That skin was what enabled spiders and other stuff of almost insignificant weight to walk on the top of water. Ninja had learned how to enhance this surface tension with chakra, and walk on it themselves, despite their own weight being orders of magnitude outside the range where they'd normally have broken through that skin's resistance.

The steps of water walking were first to learn how to detect and enhance surface tension so that skin could hold you up. Although at this stage it was like walking on a very deep, very soft mattress, and not very good for fighting on. Then one had to learn how to use chakra to repel water from one's body and equipment, because otherwise when you got wet the water would immediately pull you under instead of hold you on top. Then, lastly, a ninja learned how to make a stable platform to stand on, making the surface tension hard enough to hold them like a dance floor instead of a mattress.

Learning about surface tension had also led to other inventions, such as the Watery Prison technique, creating an inescapable bubble of water about an enemy ninja as a way of immobilizing him.

Naturally, having obscene amounts of chakra, Naruto had studied the art of water walking backwards to forwards, learning how to make it harder than concrete below him before he even knew how to make it keep him up.

Now one of the reasons for learning in depth the study of why water walking worked was because there was another technique out there, used by the ninja of a few water focused nations, called Water Walking Disruption, where, because they understood how the technique worked, they were able to use their chakra to undermine the chakra of enemy ninja who were trying to walk on the top of water, unraveling their attempts to create enough surface tension to stand on, and ultimately dumping them in the water.

That was often enough for them to win a fight. Because of the prevalence of the water walking technique quite a few ninja never bothered to learn how to swim. Sand particularly, where there wasn't enough water to learn in around their village, was one of the villages whose ninja could rarely handle water without walking on it. But they were far from the only one.

Even used alone, this became a powerful defense for a water based nation. If your ninja could walk on water while denying that ability to their enemies the advantage in any fight was greatly on your side, as even for those ninja that could swim the activity took a lot of effort and attention and was not conducive to forming handseals of flinging kunai.

However, you fight enough half-submerged ninja who are trying to fight and you learn something else. Water was almost as effective as dirt in stopping any attacks that try to come through. Being up to your shoulders in the stuff made you very hard to hit with kunai or any non-lightning technique.

So, determined to use any good advantage they could find, the ninja of Mist had developed techniques for taking advantage of that and learned how to fight and how to breathe underwater.

When you could not only disrupt other ninja's ability to walk on water, which made all but a vanishing few nearly helpless, but use your chakra to breathe water, and practiced how to fight effectively underwater, you had a set of advantages as deadly and dangerous as those that protected the Hidden Village of Sand. So long as you were defending islands, where to reach you any attacker had to cross over water, you could meet him on terms where he could not possibly beat you.

All of this was well and good, and made up a part of Hidden Mist's academy set of ninja skills of things every genin was expected to know. However it had caused a thought to enter Naruto's head that he was presently exploring.

He was playing in the bath just after learning about surface tension when the sudsy water gave him an idea. Soap bubbles were really using the same thing, surface tension, to hold themselves together. They were little bags of air with a skin of water wrapped around them. In a fit of brilliance he connected this to his favorite technique: The standard Shadow Clone, and the Kitsune Clone as well, were chakra constructs not unlike a giant soap bubble. What he was doing to create them was to project a mass of chakra like air, which he then wrapped in a film not unlike the water around a bubble, using his control to increase the surface tension so it held, not unlike the soap in the water.

Also like a soap bubble, any damage and they popped.

For centuries people had been trying to toughen the skin of surface tension that made up a clone, hoping to improve it to where it could take damage. So far it had never worked to anyone's satisfaction.

But there were big bubbles, and there were masses of small bubbles that took up the same space as the bigger ones, and couldn't be popped as easily. Something that would disrupt the skin of a bubble would pop all of the big one but only get a few of the little ones. And really the only difference between the big bubbles and masses of smaller ones was the number of internal walls and subdivisions. Everything else was the same.

Naruto was there in the tub when he reached the epiphany that alone would have made him an S-rank ninja. The thought came to him that he could make clones that were honeycombed with many internal subdivisions. So instead of his clone being one bubble, it would be a mass of thousands of smaller ones stuck together. The advantage to this would be damage to one would not break them all. It would only reduce the overall volume, but he might even be able to train clones to recreate those bubbles to repair ones lost to damage.

In short, not only a clone able to take a hit, but one able to regenerate its wounds like he could. Armored in ice or wood, these new clones ought to be able to take as much of a beating as a living ninja! With enough practice on forming and reforming the subdivisions to optimize this new clone advance, they might even equal the toughness of a fairly good ninja.

It was when Kurenai invented, as part of her medical project to treat chakra exhaustion, a method for drawing chakra out of one's environment that he realized they had something very special in combination.

They wouldn't be infiltrating one enemy village. With solid clones able to take a hit and heal damage, as well as replenish their chakra supplies, they'd be able to infiltrate ALL of them!

I I I

Author's Notes:

Work has already begun on the next chapter, which so far is going well. 


	74. Chapter 74

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-Four

by Lionheart

I I I

They were having a vacation reset.

Actually, it was their third in a row. The clan had a standing rule to declare them in honor of any major discoveries and improvements, and Naruto's improvement to the Shadow and Kitsune clones alone qualified as a major one. As did Kurenai's ability to draw chakra out of the living environment.

They were still working on a name for Kurenai's technique. Although, since no one else knew of the Kitsune Clone technique, they decided rather than call it the Advanced Advanced Shadow Clone technique or some such nonsense, they would just roll all of Naruto's improvements together in under the same name of Kitsune Clone as though it had always been this good.

It wasn't not like anyone else ever had a need to know. Although no sooner had they thought that was settled when Kin had nicknamed it the Bubble Clone, and that was catchy enough it was probably the name that was going to stick.

Surprisingly, Bubble Clones took no more chakra to form than their regular ones. A solid clone of any form took an enormous amount of chakra to create because that's what it was made of. Adding subdivisions actually took no more chakra. What it required was enormous amounts of control.

The third major achievement was actually made by Yakumo, with her illusions ability to stimulate damage being used to simulate workouts. Together with Yugao they had been working on this, but the real breakthrough had been when they developed a medical technique based on the changes the body underwent during her exercise illusions, rather than perfecting the illusionary workouts themselves.

Really, viewed as a medical problem, intense muscle growth and development was not any more extreme a problem than closing up wounds. They both went through the same stages. The different lay in the fact that to control either you had to understand what you were after. With wounds that was easy, the body itself knew. With muscle growth not so much if it hadn't been there already. But to an alert medic using diagnostics to watch someone under the Kurama workout illusions, that was exactly what those showed, how the body went through the stages of development as it increased in muscle tone.

Armed with that information, a medical technique to enhance the body's physical conditioning was a fairly simple prospect. Although, basing that development on what they'd seen through the workout illusions, they had upper limits in that there was only so much improvement they could make in those conditions without destroying the body via accumulated tissue damage.

Still, working out what to do across multiple test subjects, they had been able to perfect a medical technique that could take virtually any body and improve it to where its conditioning matched that of most chunin.

To the Kitsune Clan this was a breakthrough of the highest proportions, as the majority of their members had fairly pathetic physical abilities compared to their overall ninja skills. Research into higher level forms of their native martial art could now be put into practice and refined, since their bodies were refined to a higher level able to handle it.

Also, it meant they were no longer the underdog in most physical exchanges.

Hinata woke up early intending to take full advantage of this. It was a vacation reset, which meant that nothing had to be taken seriously, so she went about scribing Caged Bird seals into the foreheads of all of the Main House Hyuga except herself as they lay sleeping (Naruto woke fairly early, and they had long ago learned to use their links to wake up along with him). Normally this couldn't be done without agonizing pain to the subject, and that wouldn't do, as one would wake the others, then she'd be stopped before she got to them all. But apply enough pain suppression techniques and the Main House never noticed as they got sealed.

All of them.

Of course, while she did so, Hinata used some of those grooming jutsu her husband had created to dye all of their hair pink.

Skipping on down to the Branch House, she happily ordered Neji to stand still while she dyed his hair and put it up in cascading ringlets while he scowled. In fact, that was what she was doing when her father stormed up behind her and began scolding in an angry voice.

"Hina- ARGHH!!"

Hinata dropped the handseal that had convulsed the man in pain, then asked, "Yes, Chief Servant To The House Of Hyuga? You have something to ask?"

She didn't even turn to face him, continuing to style Neji's pink hair as though that held all of her attention.

Clearly, Hiashi decided as he lay on the ground, brain on fire and Caged Bird seal on his forehead throbbing in pain, simply ordering her to remove the seals would be ineffectual.

And only an unsealed Hyuga could do it.

Also, somehow, a tiny corner in the back of his mind concluded that the icy demeanor he'd always considered essential to a clan head was a great deal less appealing when he was on the receiving end of it.

He'd almost decided to make the appeal as her father, but then considered that seeing as how he couldn't recall the last interaction he'd had with her on friendly, familial terms, his odds of success there were no better.

That was the first time it struck the man that he'd probably be wearing this seal until the end of his natural life, at which point he broke down crying.

Hinata hummed happily as she continued to style a now-stunned Neji's hair, the clan head breaking down into a crying wreck behind them. Inwardly she was giggling like crazy. It was a little petty, but every so often it was fun to give her father a picture of what he'd thought was a perfect daughter, cold and power-hungry, without concern for others, just because his reaction on realizing he didn't like that person was always so satisfying!

Then Hinata's mother walked up behind the girl and gave her a hug, and she melted back into her mother's arms, just exuding joy and radiating a kind of happiness that lifts tender feelings into even the most hardened soul.

Hiashi's was not the only jaw to drop open in shock at seeing the woman.

I I I

The Naked In Public technique went off in the ANBU ready room, along with some of the most powerful stink bombs ever created.

Childish laughter filled the air.

Konoha was then filled with the familiar scene of ANBU chasing after quickly dodging prey, falling subject to paint bombs and other pranks along the way. Although in this case those brightly painted ANBU were dressed in barrels, discarded newspapers stuck to their bodies via chakra, and other assorted detritus grabbed on the fly so as not to delay their chase.

One bright blue ANBU, whose hawk mask was the only thing to survive the Naked In Public technique and was holding torn out pages of a phone book to his body to cover his privates, shouted as he closed in on the target, "Come back here you little ...! Anko? Kurenai?" The outraged ANBU came to a confused halt before the two giggling jonin, right before a cream pie hit him in the face, causing several of his yellow pages to fall to the ground as he lost concentration. His attention was brought back to the matter at hand by flash bulbs going off as they photographed him and he screamed at the two swiftly departing women trailing laughter along in their wake, "How DARE you do that?!?"

The chase resumed.

Naruto smiled as he watched his wives enjoying themselves, Kurenai and Anko running about the village ala his own post-prank games of tag with ANBU. The ANBU, of course, never had a chance.

This was the third vacation reset in a row, and there was going to be a fourth and possibly fifth. To Anko, use of the Kurama bloodline to create a medical technique that builds up the bodies as though through exercise was the jumping off point. If it could do that, then they could also use the Kurama bloodline to practice those techniques that build up resistance to poisons.

He'd given up on learning that one before even having any company in these resets, so if they could get the poison resistance going that would be worth yet another vacation - their fifth.

The fourth, however, was already lined up, locked in to their schedule now that Anko had, this very morning, completed the Flesh Clone technique. Now all they had to do was jam some souls in those bodies and they could bring someone back from the dead (at the cost of killing someone else, of course. But this was the ninja world. There would always be plenty of enemies).

Besides, they had to have SOMETHING to do with Orochimaru's infiltrators. Ibiki had actually been giggling to himself as they'd rounded up the genuine traitors to use as their raw material for this.

But there really wasn't a BETTER use for Koharu, Homura and Danzo.

The technique hadn't worked all that well, at first, until Naruto had skipped off to Hidden Cloud and kidnapped their demon container. Two-tailed cats in legend had powers over the dead, and in practice that turned out to be true. Yugito, after much massaging, had agreed to turn traitor to her village and join them, and one of the first things she'd done had been some mystic cat thing that had sliced through the remaining barriers in their flawed technique for raising the dead, overcoming the last obstacles to bring about total success for their resurrection technique.

Now they had a Pure Resurrection jutsu. It required the demon cat's help to pull off, but she was just as susceptible to massages as was her container. Maybe even more so, as cats had a legendary weakness for being petted.

Naturally having access to their loved ones had triggered an explosion of people dear to those in the Kitsune Clan coming back to life. Hinata had her mother and because she asked Neji had his father. Naruto had his father. Haku had HER mother. The village was even being guarded by a couple thousand grim-faced Gaaras, determined to protect what was going on at the core of it, because that's where he and his siblings were bonding with their restored mother.

They'd even fiddled with his seal so it was stronger and Shukaku couldn't interrupt. He couldn't take over when Gaara slept, either, and that was going to lead to the redhead sleeping for a week once he'd heard of it (they knew because they'd fixed his seal before, and that's what he did. The only thing keeping him awake right now was bonding with his real mother).

Kakashi even had his own father back - who was tearing him apart over how much of a wastrel he'd become. They had clones with popcorn watching that drama, and plans to return Obito and Rin so they could take their turns.

The first time they'd returned Obito he'd torn into Kakashi even worse than their illusion had done, and that was the IMPURE form! They couldn't wait to see what he'd do with his full faculties intact.

Tsunade even had her brother, and the First and Second Hokages. Naruto was quietly wondering what would happen to Orochi-bastard when he'd try to raise them later on, seeing as how they weren't currently dead.

Actually, Naruto probably knew the answer to that. When they'd tried to raise his mother they'd gotten nothing. Like reaching into an empty cookie jar, there simply was nothing there for the technique to grab, which told him his mom was alive out there somewhere.

He wasn't certain who to be furious at for that. Either her for abandoning him, or whoever convinced her to do so. But some tiny portion of his mind that was still innocent desperately hoped it wasn't her fault, that she'd had no choice in the matter and would have stayed with him and raised him if she could. Because still, at heart, the boy desperately wanted his mother.

In some ways this reset was feeling like Parents Day at a school, what with all of the Clan excitedly leading around their relations and showing off things to them, introducing them to the clan compound just being together, telling each other of their lives and getting caught up with those lost to them.

Heck, Naruto's own dad was split almost equally between wanting to kill his home village for the way they'd treated his son and their mutual sacrifice for the benefit of the village and being too blown away by things his son had accomplished to be able to think much about anything.

Everybody was getting deeply into party mode. Rules of anything goes prevailed. What else would make it a vacation?

The previous reset had ended when Naruto, shapeshifted as Orochimaru's chair when he was visiting as the Kazekage for the third stage of the exams, used that proximity to hit him with the counter for the False Face technique, AND with the Naked in Public technique, so suddenly there was a nude girl where the Kazekage once was.

Sarutobi had keeled over from a massive nosebleed.

Orochimaru had killed him, of course (not that it was unexpected, it occurred all the time to where the entire clan was blase about it). But as the Clan enjoyed one vacation reset after another, things were getting progressively more weird.

Not, of course, like that was a bad thing. It was quite refreshing, actually.

That was when a distant clone popped itself and Naruto learned that it had succeeded at perfecting the Flight jutsu at last. Hmm, ok, that meant a sixth vacation reset was in order. They'd be lucky to remember what their old roles were when they got back to the real ones.

But in the meantime, he now had the last jutsu he'd needed for a massive prank he'd been off-and-on planning for the longest time.

It was time to contact Ibiki with some changes to the immediate plans.

I I I

Sarutobi couldn't make up his mind what to do as two jonin got carried into his office by outraged purple and nearly naked ANBU members. It turned out they'd only gotten caught when the pair of ladies could no longer control their laughter, and it was giving him odd flashbacks to Naruto.

The town was in chaos today, and he couldn't understand it.

Tsunade's sudden return to Konoha had no explanation he was aware of, but suddenly there were reports of dozens of dead shinobi being sighted and the Hokage could not help but suspect she'd somehow brought them back to life.

In that case, there were three other Hokages currently running around, and, as far as Sarutobi was concerned, one of them was going to take over and he would be back to his retirement at last.

That thought had him in a far more relaxed mood than normal, even as over in another part of town Sasuke was getting haunted by the ghosts of his clan, all accusing him of being a traitor.

Still, relaxed as he was, some things were clear. He stared at the two jonin ladies acting as schoolgirls and folded his hands before him as the ANBU read a long list of charges that included dropping nearly a thousand tons of sugar into the town's drinking water, hijacking the Nara clan's deer and hooking them to a sleigh which they then rode around town flinging gifts of condoms to anyone over eighty, and not least somehow convincing Jiraiya to run around town in a green spandex jumpsuit shouting about the Flames of Youth.

And that was just in the space of two hours or so.

Fixing the two ladies giggling over the recounting of only half or so of their antics with a beady stare, the Hokage asked, "Is there anything you two care to say in your defense?"

"Sure!" Anko bubbled.

Anko bubbled? Surreptitiously, the Hokage checked to make sure no one had switched out the blend of what he was smoking in his pipe. Naruto had done that once and he shuddered to think of the laws he'd almost passed under it.

He enjoyed ramen more without it being a mandatory part of the shinobi diet.

"It's not like any of this matters! You'll forget it all in a month, anyway."

Having an illusion mistress say that to one was not reassuring. Sarutobi checked to make sure his mental defenses were fully in place.

Just that moment his door got thrown open and two more prisoners got hauled in by ANBU. Seeing two clan heiresses before him, Sarutobi raised a surprised eyebrow. "What are the charges on these two?"

"This one," a gazelle masked ANBU pointed at Hana Inuzuka, "was found having loud sex..."

Sarutobi smiled. "Now, there's nothing wrong..."

"On the roof of the burning Utatane complex?" Gazelle-ANBU asked.

The Third Hokage's face grew stony, hearing of misfortune befalling the home of his teammate. Giving his best intimidating glare to the flushed and happy girl, who ignored it as inconsequential, he demanded, "Now just what is Councilwoman Koharu going to say about this?"

"Nothing. She's dead." Hana shrugged off his threatening posture like it was nothing, completely unconcerned with the fallout of her actions.

Sarutobi suddenly felt cold.

The other prisoner snorted. "She deserved it, too."

The Hokage's eyes flicked to the young woman he barely recognized, then up to the ANBU for an explanation, who answered prompter, "She was found on top of the Konoha Ninja Academy torturing the staff there with illusions of them all failing the Fourth Hokage out of their classes, then the village being destroyed."

"You forgot the part about them being solely responsible for the murder and torture of all of their family and friends, too," Yakumo Kurama boasted.

"Yes, that too," the ANBU growled.

"Or that the Kyubi showed up and was helping."

"You still don't admit that was another illusion?" ANBU growled out.

This time it was Anko who snorted. "You should have invited me, kid."

"I did. You were busy," Yakumo smiled to the other ninja.

Sarutobi's eyes were nearly falling out of their sockets over this. Gathering himself, he carefully tapped more tobacco into his bowl (double checking the mixture as he did so), then leaning back and asking, "Would any of you care to explain this blatant disregard for the health and safety of this village?"

Once more the door of his office banged open, this time admitting three ANBU, which confused him until he realized one was a prisoner of the other two.

"Yugao!!" Kurenai and Yakumo chorused, popping out of their seats to check on the woman. "What did you get caught doing?"

The ANBU who'd brought her in were stiff as they reported. "Sir, this woman was seen giving out ANBU masks and uniforms to visiting ninja of other nations."

"Can't wait to see what Kin, Tayuya and Temari get up to with them, too," the purple haired woman giggled, causing Sarutobi to realize this was another case of the subject laughing too hard to evade capture.

"Just them?" Anko asked with raised eyebrows. No reason to get caught doing that, after all. They could, and had, done that much privately.

"No," the standing ANBU captain twitched stiffly, as he reported, "All of them. Every foreign ninja." And Yugao giggled uncontrollably. Even now Gaara was running around in a raccoon mask, all thousand or so of him.

Sarutobi groaned, sensing more mischief than malice here, which puzzled him greatly. Since when had the entire village turned into copies of Naruto?

"And," one of the standing ANBU guards choked back tears. "They have perverted the Hokage Monument, sir."

Looking out the window, Sarutobi saw the mountain was now twice as tall as it used to be, with the newly installed upper portion being entirely a full figure statue of Naruto wearing the Hokage's hat standing triumphantly with his foot atop the Third's head, all the Hokages below him gazing worshipfully up in open adoration of Konoha's demon container.

It must have taken the Nine-tail's chakra to do that much Earth manipulation, no telling who had had taught the boy the skill to do so.

The Hokage shuddered.

By now the door slamming open again was almost not a surprise.

At this point it would have been a relief to see Naruto brought in, which thought caused the Hokage some surprise and nostalgia. Somehow this was so familiar, and yet... wrong not to see the blond boy taking part in it.

Or maybe he just hadn't been caught yet.

"Sir!' the ninja who'd just entered called out urgently. "Half the village council are dead!"

A hostile stare swiveled to face Hana like a turret. Clan heir or no...

"Serves them right." Tsunade entered right behind the messenger, flinging him back out of the rather crowded office to make room for her. Dropping a stack of paperwork on the Hokage's desk, she announced, "These are the files for the new entries your subordinates almost didn't get to you in time."

The Hokage's pipe had fallen to the floor nervelessly. "Was that?"

"The Kazekage's hat?" Yugao answered for him. "Yeah."

"But..?"

"Why shouldn't she wear it? She is the Kazekage, after all," Hana finished.

Sarutobi fought off a fainting spell.

"How..?" one of the stunned ANBU croaked out.

Kurenai shrugged, stealing the Monkey summoning contract right from out in front of the Hokage and signing it right then and there. Slamming her hand down on the desk, she got herself a mid-sized armored monkey and told it, "My friends and I require lunch. Fetch it from the Golden Dragon."

So stunned were they no one mentioned her casual theft of one of the Hokage's most prized techniques, nor using it for an errand boy to the one of the most expensive and most exclusive restaurants in town.

"Now where were we?" The illusion mistress leaned back in her chair.

The Hokage cleared his throat. "Is it possible, or could I have just imagined it, that Tsunade, my apprentice, somehow became ruler of Hidden Sand?"

"MmHmm," Yugao answered, digging into her newly delivered lunch. "She does that all the time now. Says it doesn't have any of the unhappy memories associated with your hat."

"You ought to hear her cackling when she sends jonin off on missions to eradicate her debt," Anko nodded approvingly. "Her intelligence on those assignments is near flawless now. They never fail to succeed."

Sarutobi rubbed his temples with both hands.

"How?" He somehow loaded a great deal of meaning into that word.

"Isn't hard," Yakumo, who was the LAST person he'd expected to answer, kicked back with her own newly delivered lunch held in her lap. "Fake being a long term deep cover agent returning home, reveal that Orochi-bastard slaughtered their last leader, and Boom! You're in! Heck, I've been Kazekage once before now. Tsunade's been nice about letting most of us have turns."

Suddenly rubbing his temples wasn't making the headache go away. He also noted in a dry corner of his mind that the monkey hadn't delivered him lunch.

"Mmm, less paperwork than this job, too," Kurenai added approvingly.

That was NOT something Sarutobi wanted to hear.

"It's our civilian council, always creating more work than they're worth." Yugao nodded knowingly, chowing down on her delicious roast duck.

That didn't make the Hokage feel any better.

"The civilian council..." he began, until Hana waved her hand and a stack of papers appeared in the air and fell onto his desk, instantly fascinating him. A paperwork jutsu? Why had he never heard of such a thing? The ability to create already completed paperwork out of thin air ought to be a Kage-rank technique known to everyone in his position if such a thing existed at all!

"What is this?" he asked, picking up the top sheet off the pile.

"Some of the laws your precious teammates and Danzo shove through after you are dead," Anko answered for him, seeing as how Hana's mouth was full.

It didn't take long skimming them for Sarutobi to be utterly horrified. Once more, he knew the styles and forms of documents of this village, and though these papers had never passed his desk, nor could they while he lived, they bore every mark of being absolutely authentic, and utterly ruthless as they stripped power away from the Hokage's office and gave it to the council, not to mention enacted other travesties.

His head was spinning.

"How can you know what they do after I am dead?" He asked in tones devoid of undertone or emotion.

Anko shrugged, answering brutally enough, "Simple. You die just about every reset. We went through a time a while back where we tried to save you, but it really wasn't worth it. Lots of effort and you never were very grateful. Here, this is what it looked like."

Seconds later Sarutobi shuddered, falling forward onto his desk after having just lived through the experience of having his most beloved yet treacherous student slaughter him during the third stage of the Chunin Exam.

Naruto had copied the memory once by pretending to be his hat. So it was easy enough for his wives to recall. By now they all knew the memory transfer techniques.

Sarutobi was still struggling through the memory of having summoned Death.

"Pretty much whenever you die they start enacting these laws," Kurenai told him somewhat casually.

The offhand nature of their remarks really struck him. They didn't care. He had been Hokage for a very long time, and never before had he seen ninja care so little for his authority or opinion. He'd seen them defiant, turn traitor, or outright rebellious, but never before dismiss him so casually, as though there was nothing he could do of any significance to them.

Sarutobi had been a great many things over his long life, but since his early childhood he had been powerful. So it was a completely new sensation to 'The God of Shinobi' to have people completely unconcerned about him, as though nothing he did could possibly matter to them at all.

Not the usual attitudes of prisoners brought to his office by a long shot.

"Resets?" the man managed to pack a whole wealth of questions into that single word.

"Stuck in a time loop," Anko blew him off, more interested in her duck. "It gets a bit crazy, what with the invasion and all."

"Although you've got to admit, it's gotten a lot better now that we're killing Orochimaru, rather than the other way around," Hana giggled. "And Tsunade is able to keep Sand from betraying us. It's almost relaxing, now."

"Yeah, but an eternity of waiting for Naruto to make chunin while facing S-rank foes doing so gets a bit old," Anko shot back.

The Hokage shot a direct look to Kurenai, who shrugged somewhat apologetically and answered, "We are continually facing a crisis on par with any that ever struck this village, and whether we emerge victorious or get reduced to the level of a minor village is all up to Naruto. But, knowing that, it does tend to erode one's faith in one's village to see their greatest hero denied a chance at promotion when he saves them over and over again."

"I see," the Hokage nodded soberly, drawing a piece of paper to him. Making three marks on the form and signing it, he turned it over to the women. "There, Naruto is now officially a chunin. Why don't you tell me about this invasion?"

The women in the room went white.

At that moment trumpet fanfares sounded outside.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Lest anyone misunderstand, the moment the Hokage signed that form the times loops were over. Alas, there is only so much story to write, and we've reached the point where the end is needed. Now they're stuck with the consequences of whatever it was they are doing. So, yes, this is the long awaited Final Reset. Time will not be looping anymore.

But, of course, they weren't exactly taking this one seriously. 


	75. Chapter 75

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-Five

by Lionheart

I I I

Konoha was a LARGE village. Actually, at about eighty thousand occupants, for a world without modern methods of transportation and shipping, it was unspeakably huge.

Almost none of the capitols of nations could equal it for size.

The downtown heart of Konoha where the Hokage monument and tower, as well as the Ninja Academy and shopping districts, were was built a substantial distance from the walls. So for a trumpet fanfare to reach them across that distance was basically unheard of. It required more trumpets sounding together than any lord held in his retinue.

Alone, that spoke of wealth outside the reach of any feudal lord.

The gate guards, lax as usual in peaceful, laid-back Konoha, were unprepared for late arrivals to the chunin exam, but accepted their paperwork without question. That changed when those first few messengers told them they had to activate a seal array to summon their exam participants and jumped back to open a huge, swirling wormhole above the road into town, out of which marched a parade of ninja in colorful livery and lockstep formation, twelve abreast and looking like their line went on forever.

Uniforms for ninja amounted to nothing more than a set of BDUs and armor, but if they ever had a dress uniform... it still wouldn't have looked this good.

Once the first two hundred or so were out they revealed themselves to be simply heralds for the rest of the party and stepped aside to either side of the roadway in synchronized movements that spoke of countless hours of drill getting the motion just right - more time than many samurai spent training on their sword katas.

Then the peal of two hundred trumpets sounded across all of Konoha.

Curious onlookers gathered to look on in awe as the real procession made its way out of the hole in the air and the trumpets went on playing a brilliant example of rare skill and ingenuity, melodies dancing across each other like a tumbling pile of playful puppies in one gigantic, harmonious fugue.

Bright, cheery, triumphal music carried all of the way across town, and if the trumpet playing heralds were well dressed, that was as nothing compared to the ninja emerging from that hole, also in lockstep formation that the very finest of drill instructors would have been proud of. Not a motion was out of place as the parade just went on and on.

Naruto had been a tailor of outrageous skill for quite some time now and had experimented with countless styles, and these represented the best of them - fighting outfits as colorful as flowers, as flamboyant as gypsies, yet as practical as anything ever introduced to combat, wonderful and deadly as ice.

That one such costume was present would have been remarkable on its own, but Naruto had thousands of such designs, and each new arrival was unique.

The outfits alone probably cost more than the entire worth of Konoha.

The lengths to which Naruto would go for a Great Prank had only increased during the resets. And that they were currently, at least insofar as he knew, in a vacation reset only made anything allowable - no limits.

He could do quite a work of art with those boundaries.

Orochimaru had been an unavoidable focus of the Clan's attentions since well before there was a Kitsune Clan. He had been an integral, often unavoidable, part of their lives since the resets began. Several times now the Clan had plumbed his mind for secrets of his various bloodline experiments. They had insider agents he could not suspect as prior to the resets those same people were perfectly loyal to him. They had Tsunade's medical expertise, and the often unwitting help of the Snake Sannin's own accomplices.

No, they had learned quite a bit of what Orochimaru had discovered as far as the creation of bloodlimits went. Even, in some cases, more than he did, as he left off experiments they'd later completed, or forgotten research they'd directed him, either directly or indirectly during the resets, to perform.

Besides, the members of Clan Kitsune had started out these experiments already among the Elemental Countries foremost experts on bloodline theft.

It was inevitable that at some point that would become the focus of a prank, and given their degree of skill at it, only a truly monumental prank would do. Anything less than stupendous would be disrespectful to the amount of work, dedication and effort put into acquiring the tools to pull it off.

It was, of course, inevitable that while learning so much about Orochimaru's efforts to create bloodlines for himself and his ninja that the Kitsune should discover his attempts to make the ultimate underwater ninja in Sea country.

Tracking those records back to the remaining scientist and experiment was a bit more effort, but hardly difficult. It had actually been among the most useful steps in stabilizing the tiger elixir of Mizuki, which offered tremendous power but was unstable and rapidly broke down, to go off to Sea country and investigate similar experiments done by mostly the same minds which were completely stable, if not entirely as universally effectual.

That had been the reason they'd discovered Isaribi.

Really, she had Naruto had hit it off so well that had been a red letter day for the Clan, and Hana and Anko were already taking bets as to when she would join up. She'd be a member already, save for Tsunade wanting to do more research into the combination of her incomplete aquatic bloodline and the established Kitsune powers.

Orochimaru may have lost interest in the underwater ninja project, deeming in the end aquatic ninja to be of limited utility. But when the scientist at the head of a genetic project applies the results to himself, you can be pretty certain the testing is completed. And what's more, this bloodline had a power rarely found anywhere - that of being able to switch seamlessly from having outward signs and new appendages to a pure human appearance.

That would save a lot of chakra and countless shapeshifts, keeping their unique appearances hidden.

Some time ago the Clan had showed up as Orochimaru and the Sound Four, having long enough acquaintance with them they'd been able to impersonate him and convince the medic-ninja in charge of the project to spill his guts about all of the particulars, hoping to interest his once sponsor to contribute resources again, and a time or two they'd even done so, directing the work this way or that to explore the options.

One of those close brushes with Itachi, after having gone back to the old classic of revealing Sasuke to be a secret pooh-weilder, they had even gotten hold of one of Kisame's scales, and the researcher had been able to draw all sorts of useful insights out of that, which the Kitsune had dutifully recorded - particularly because, having lost Hinata and Kurenai battling him, they were not about to take that course again.

Some sacrifices just aren't worth the knowledge obtained from them.

So anyway, they knew more about the process for aquatic ninja than anybody these days, and were easily able to complete Isaribi's transformation so she was able to get the full benefits of the bloodline, seamless transformation and all. They could also remove it, something the scientist in charge could not do, and whether they did one or the other would be determined by how well her bloodline could work with the Kitsune changes.

Naturally, having so many girls in the Clan they were also playing around with the appearance. There were ugly fish and pretty fish, and the one the project had originally been based on was not an attractive one. So they were playing around with replacement looks, and their current favorite was one based on the Japanese fighting fish, which all of them agreed was gorgeous.

It didn't hurt that Tsunade worked in chameleon DNA so they could change their colors at a whim in that form.

Of course, this being a vacation reset, it did not matter what they did (so long as they kept copious notes on anything new discovered) and Naruto went ahead and applied Isaribi's bloodline to himself, just to see (the modified version, of course).

This prank was going to be at least partially in her honor, anyway.

The parade of impeccably dressed ninja waved many streaming standards over their heads as they marched, colorful banners waved proudly above the participants, representing many dead or foreign ninja clans, even some out of Konoha - confusing the more astute observers a great deal.

Why were they claiming to represent so many clans?

Others, the more ignorant or less suspicious, hardly cared. This parade was a once in a lifetime event, with not only amazing standards of music (chiefly trumpet and drums) and brightly colored clothes, but also a rare art in the ninja world - that of precision, coordinated movement. Periodically the straight marching column would break up with part of the arriving ninja suddenly taking a sharp turn and step at an angle that would have caused them to collide with another person had not that other also turned to move in a way that let streams of ninja march in between each other at right angles, diagonal cross-hatching, and other artful forms that took the breath away tossed out as casually as a man at a stall hawks fish.

Nobody bothered to learn the precise, machined movements of well-drilled performance troops in their world, so it came across as amazing in a way that powerful jutsu would not be.

The fact that hundreds of tiger cavalry was present in the mix, as well as dog using ninja, only added to the complexity of the arrangements.

The brilliant costumes of everyone involved only enhanced the visual effects.

It took some doing. Normal forehead protectors would only have detracted from the amazing fashion display going on here, but more observant ninja called in to watch this increasingly giant parade did finally note that each of the arriving ninja did wear a unifying symbol somewhere on their clothing.

A paw print.

Trouble was, nobody knew of any ninja village or clan to use that symbol, and considering the numbers of arriving ninja wearing it, the receiving force was beginning to panic just a bit.

One terrified gate guard made record speed racing to the Hokage tower with the entry papers for the contestants of the Secret Village of The Beasts.

By the time the wormhole they'd arrived through had closed there were two and a half thousand ninja inside Konoha wearing the paw symbol. Just from numbers alone this group was beginning to cause defending ANBU to sweat, and nobody could make out any distinct rank identifiers on the new arrivals.

A hundred or so foreign ninja present for chunin exams could accomplish nothing save for a bit of spying or sabotage. Thousands was an invasion force, and many Konoha shinobi observing this began to uncomfortably review their lack of recent training during these peaceful times.

A major ninja village had about five thousand ninja at any one time. Konoha was a clear front-runner in having roughly twice that, while Suna had been crippled by their daimyo until they had approximately half that, to the point where some of the larger minor villages were a credible threat to them.

Due to constraints for training, proportions for those ninja were about the same all over the world, giving everybody about eighty percent genin, fifteen percent chunin, and five percent jonin - with, if they were lucky, a ninja or two suitable to call kage rank. But, just in case they didn't, all of the villages kept a secret scroll containing techniques for handing to their best jonin to bring him up to kage standards in the event they needed a new leader and had no one else qualified to do the task.

Because of all of the chaos and vulnerability caused by the loss of a leader, it was important they be as close to assassination-proof as possible.

Now, not all of those ninja could perform missions. Roughly half at any one time were tied down to more or less permanent administrative tasks like security guards for important sites and persons, mission assessment and assignment, archives, ANBU, torture and interrogation duties and so on. So only about half were available for paying missions, and they tried to keep busy, so a substantial fraction of those were on assignment at any time.

So Konoha, which had roughly ten thousand ninja, had about five thousand split up between serving as guards for their prison, the Hokage tower, gates, the wall, and important persons, running their secure archives of records, roving ANBU patrols, and just keeping all of the tasks that required security clearances and some amount of trust or non-kill-ability going.

It was a big town, there were a lot of those things to do.

Then, of the five thousand that were left, anywhere from one quarter to two thirds were out on missions of one sort or another. At the time of the Chunin Exams, it was about half, so they had two and a half thousand mission ready ninja on hand.

For the invasion Sand had cut security at home to the bone, sealing important structures in their absence, shut down both outside missions and the mission office, and committed almost two thousand ninja to the attack, with Sound contributing just over another thousand.

Attacking by surprise, backed up by mighty summons, they had managed to slaughter between two and three thousand Konoha ninja before the attack failed, along with almost five times that number of civilians, but it was not the total annihilation Orochimaru craved - although it could have been. Had not Gaara been dealt with early on by Naruto, and Jiraiya taken care of one of the largest snakes, that invasion had had a chance of succeeding. And had Orochimaru himself not been crippled while assassinating the Hokage, he could well have turned the tides in the attackers' favor again.

It was an amazing stroke of luck for Konoha that they had counters for the three most dangerous heavy hitters on the enemy side present at that time seeing as how Jiraiya was rarely in town and Naruto had no experience taking down giant, city-destroying monsters up until that point. Also, if Orochimaru had taken Sarutobi seriously and not toyed around with him, he could have finished the old man before he'd put aside his affection for his much-beloved student, and the sannin would have escaped from that fight unharmed.

So the invasion had had a real chance of succeeding.

Still, an assault force of three thousand ninja was hardly seen even during a major ninja war, so since it took that to seriously threaten them, Konoha had some justification in feeling impervious to outside threat.

A force equal to the total available mobile army of a major village inside their town defenses was a shocking wake-up call to their complacency. This was tempered somewhat by the fact that the arriving ninja did nothing but march and play music for the longest time, but when they reached the heart of the Hidden Village of Leaf where the chunin exams were being held they exploded outward in a three-dimensional kaleidoscope of color and motion.

Flashes of color from wings and tails confused everybody as out of nowhere the parade went from an orderly march to an explosion of light and color.

Countless ANBU had accidents at the sudden change. It was like a firework going off, a spark as small as a fuse filling the whole earth with light and noise all at once.

The new ninja were instantly everywhere, sprouting cat ears and fox tails, fins and feathered bird wings and tails as they danced, knocking down quite a few kunai flung by Konoha ninja whose nerves had frayed without breaking step or even appearing to notice the attacks.

Suddenly it became clear why they wore the paw print and rumors circulating out of the Hokage Tower called them ninja of the Secret Village of Beasts, as all of the new arrivals sprouted animal features of some sort as they burst outward, dancing on walls, wires, upside down or in flight.

Beast Ninja filled the entire heart of Konoha with light and sound and motion and color as they raced about on rollerblades, danced on tops of giant balls, or surfed down streets, up walls and around shops, the earth splashing and rising like waves to carry them about in laughing and happy abandon that was at once playful and chaotic and perfectly choreographed.

They spun and they twirled in perfect unison. Not one beast ninja was out of place so much as a step in this gigantic, fantastic display, in spite of not a few panicked attacks upon them.

No ninja village, or indeed any nation in the elemental countries had ever seen anything like it.

The ANBU got themselves under control once it became clear this was yet another dance move for the new arrivals, although not a few felt shamed to have missed on those abortive attacks - no ninja likes to be treated as so minor a threat he can be ignored, and they like it less the higher they rise in rank. To not even disrupt the arrivals' display really stung ANBU pride.

You're supposed to notice when someone tries to kill you. It's only polite.

Careful observers noted five distinct groups of Beast Ninja currently leaping and cavorting over their town in an amazing display of ninja acrobatics. Most alarming to those of Konoha were those who had fox features: long fluffy tails waving about in tune to their dance steps, pert ears and whiskers. The others were not so bad, and one, those with similar canine features using dog companions not unlike the Inuzuka, were almost comforting, as Konoha knew and liked their own dog users.

Next most alarming were those whose large musculature, striped cat ears and tails, mounted on monstrously large tigers, marked them as tiger ninja. You only had to look at them to know their strength and dexterity was far above the norm, even for ninja, and most of them wore heavy armor.

Seeing gorgeous blue, purple, turquoise or green fish-people whose long fins draped about them like veils dance on top of balls, leap and spin about in the air spraying water droplets everywhere was unusual even among ninja, but nothing compared to seeing colorful bird-ninja hybrids flying about overhead on parrot wings.

Then another burst of light and motion and there were summons of a bewildering variety mixed in, intermingled with every event. Giant toads up to the size of a house juggled balls with their feet - balls upon which fish ninja still danced as they sailed through the air in arcs across as juggling toads traded balls between them.

Slugs formed giant slides down which fox ninja skied or surfed or skated.

Dog summons joined dog ninja in their performances while monkey summons worked together as groups to toss turtle summons in among the balls the toads were juggling, to be danced upon and juggled with them, then danced themselves with the ninja who had summoned them.

Giant summoned weasels raced through town dragging fox ninja water skiing on the dirt behind them, and such was their earth manipulation powers that it acted exactly like water under them, even splashing about and leaving wakes that lifted and sank the civilians behind them as though they stood on water.

And the stunts they did as those fox ninja spun and twirled about on skis, crossed each other in jumps, and flipped had to be seen to be believed.

That every one of the visiting ninja had looks like happy five year olds, totally unafraid as they played actually made the civilians view the whole thing as a giant party.

The fact none of these ninja had drawn a weapon certainly helped, and the only jutsu they used were part of their performance. This last became clear as part of a giant finale where gigantic trees burst forth out of the ground, on which the visiting ninja draped their dances like Christmas ornaments, big balls of effervescent water forming between them; then they called down lightning to link all the bubbling water globes formed among all beast ninja, wreathing the towering trees and most of the surrounding town with bright, glowing, multicolor, bubbling spheres and traceries of gorgeous lightning as if in the world's largest display of strings of Christmas bulbs, a sudden storm of wind decorating the whole with a swirl of flower petals.

As they concluded this unspeakably wonderful performance, Ibiki looked up from his book where he was grading the replay of the Ninja Dance Off as part of the First Test.

"Ninja of the Beast Village, PASS!"

He calmly marked down the appropriate grade in his ledger.

I I I

Given a moment of respite, the ninja of Konoha would have sorted things out. They might even have seen through the fact that their 'visiting village' was two thousand individually unique clones of Naruto, boys and girls.

However, that's exactly why he never gave them that chance.

A pair of red beams of light lanced out of the cloud cover overhead and converged on the trunk of the largest tree grown by the Beast Ninja, causing it explode, bursting out in flame and the top half to fall, cut away. As Beast Ninja scrambled in shock to save themselves from this collapse even the least observant ninja of Konoha figured out they hadn't planned this attack.

As even their oh-so-confident visitors scrambled in shock away from the ruin of their celebration a second blast came down out of the sky and this one struck outside of the settled areas but still inside the wall, flattening a wide area and causing Konoha to shake with the power of the shockwave.

That's when the buzzing was heard. Not the familiar hum of insects, it was something more electrical, a noise of machinery.

Then the landing craft lowered out of the clouds.

It was grey and massive. Military. Hardly a building in Konoha equaled its size and it was floating through the air in precisely the same way bricks don't, attended by dozens of smaller craft zipping around it like angry bees ready to defend the hive.

One could so easily imagine dark, ominous music playing.

Anyone familiar with Star Wars would have recognized it instantly as an oversize Imperial Shuttle attended by dozens of TIE fighters. But Naruto knew they didn't watch that movie here. He'd summoned it himself once and had never been able to repeat that to get exactly that same tape since.

Allowed to do what they wanted the ninja of Konoha would have pried at this seemingly new village until they found something. Naruto was a genius with a peculiar gift for acting but even he had limits.

Faced with two unknowns they'd be worried as much about the dynamics between them as the unknowns individually.

Before the ninja of Konoha had overcome their surprise the shuttle had landed in the blast crater and begun disgorging armored troops marching down ramps in stormtrooper armor, intermingled with back uniformed Imperial officers. Only the range and the fact that a messenger on a weird platform came flying out to deliver a marked scroll to the Hokage, who was standing outside on a balcony, stopped Konoha ninja from attacking.

They were entry papers to the chunin exam.

The Secret Village of Doom had arrived.

I I I

Author's Notes:

Yes, sadly for poor Naruto, no one has informed him that the resets are over yet. Instant communication is hardly a priority when you've literally got all of the time in the world and can do this over again at need. 


	76. Chapter 76

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-Six

by Lionheart

I I I

Stage magic. What a beautiful thing.

Priceless for pranks, too.

Naruto had come across a useful phrase out of all of the books and things he'd summoned, playing with technology: "Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc."

Fortunately, that also came along with a translation (into English, which he could now read fluently): "After this, therefore because of this." It was a useful phrase because it described what was a default human assumption. If you kick a table, and the leg breaks and it falls down, you assume that the leg broke and it fell down because you kicked it. That is what you are going to believe unless you have reason to question that assumption; like if you put an egg timer on a table and the table collapses, you know that an egg timer is not sufficient on its own to cause a standard table to collapse, and so you start looking deeper (probably starting with the assumption that table was weaker than it should have been).

The beauty of stage magic was that it gave what looked to be on the surface a logical series of events, so nobody questioned it.

Say for a moment you start out with a table with a broken leg. Most of those can be fit together so it looks right, even though it has no strength and can fall over at the least jostle. Then you tie a bit of fishing line to the bottom of the broken leg, something so thin and transparent as to be invisible from any distance, and have someone waiting out of sight to pull on it. Then have an illusion of a person walk up to that table and pretend to kick it, while the person lurking out of sight gets a signal and pulls on the string.

To any observer, it will look like someone kicked the table, the leg broke, and it fell down - even though that's not what happened.

Naruto was using the same principle to play with the minds of Konoha.

Really, he was giving them something like a puppet show. Pull on a white sock over this hand, complete with cloth eyes and stuff. 'Ooh! Look! This is Beast Village!' Then pull a black sock puppet over the other hand. 'Ooh, look! Here are their rivals! Doom Village!' So long as a puppeteer hides behind a curtain at the bottom of the stage, he can act out a show and all the focus will be on the puppets, not the man behind the curtain.

Ninja liked to think they weren't that gullible, but they were. They were human and it was a human failing. All the attention in Konoha right now was focused on the two new villages when really both were made up exclusively of clones acting out parts in Naruto's program.

Beast Village had been easy. The bloodlines they already had or could easily fake. The Dog appearance was just a minor shapeshift of their foxy bits, and the Bird was something they'd been working on for their own amusement - they didn't ONLY copy other's work on bloodline creation. This was an original project of their own because, well, flying ninja were cool.

Sneaking them in was even easier. Send a small group of clones to 'arrive' at the entrance of the village, then use an illusion to simulate a wormhole and have the emissary clones make a couple thousand extra clones a few at a time to march through it. All of the Konoha ninja were on one side of that 'portal', the side pointed toward Konoha, so they only saw them walking out, not being created behind it and walking in the backstage side of the illusion.

Easy. The Konoha ninja were too busy trying to understand the dummy seal array, then panicking over the number of clones to pay much attention to how the real trick was played.

'Look and the right hand, the right hand. Pay no attention to what the left is doing,' was the game with that trick. Besides, ninja were so accustomed to the impossible happened all the time around them that when something went off right in front of them they didn't waste any time being skeptical, instead they were trying to figure out how it worked so they could do it themselves.

Or so they could fight it effectively if it comes to that.

Sometimes people don't look for obvious things. So you could, on occasion, pull off a stunt like standing before a fence, holding up a sheet in front of you painted to look like that fence, and they'd run right by. Or walk a bunch of people right through an illusion of a mysterious transport device.

You'd think ninja would be more on the ball than that, but at least bored gate guards caught off guard weren't.

Boring duty rots the brain.

The trick with Doom Village's arrival was far more involved, but at the same time even easier to pull off, with less chance of getting caught doing it.

Looking over the Uchiha Clan Library, there were all manner of jutsu and things recorded in there. Some of those were exciting, flashy stuff to be used in battle, and some was not. Among that which was not was an old, not used for nearly a century, technique for marking out borders or measuring land before you put down a foundation prior to construction. You couldn't pay most modern ninja to learn it, construction was civilian work, but Naruto was interested in construction, so he had, and it proved to be surprisingly useful.

The way the thing worked, two ninja (who each had to know the technique) stood at a distance apart from each other and went through the handseals to activate it. Then a thin line would form in between them with information telling them about how long it was, what the angle up or down was between them, and so on. Get four or more together and they can each link together with lines, so you could mark out a whole foundation, corner to corner. Very useful to know if the spot you've picked out is big enough for the building you've planned, if the plot is level and what the angles are so you know if the corners are correct or not before you dig the first shovelful of dirt.

But pretty much a dead waste of time and chakra in battle.

Unless, of course, you happen to be the Number One Surprising Ninja who can tweak jutsu just a trifle, so the beam between the two ninja is, say, a foot in diameter instead of pencil thin, and glows bright red.

The "Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc" comes back into play here, as when ninja see bright red lines coming down out of the sky, and what was on one end of those lines explodes, they assume, quite naturally, that it exploded because those lines hit it.

Not so.

Naruto's clones had been all over that tree, dancing as part of the display. It was quite easy for them to place explosive tags when and where they wanted to. And a couple of clones standing at the receiving point, forming the jutsu to create the red lines along with a couple of clones flying up in the clouds, at the same time as the clones on the ground activate the explosive tags they are standing on, and you get beams from the sky, then explosions cutting the gigantic tree in half while his 'beast' clones pretended to panic.

Naruto was a very realistic actor. He'd had to be.

Then the same thing out in some fields they knew to be vacant, using much more powerful exploding tags (he'd been playing around with the design and could make tags a hundred times more explosive than normal, and you could set them off in stacks if you desired) and you have a very realistic boom and shockwave to startle the town.

Easy.

The only complicated part had been getting a couple of clones high enough in the air they could hide among the clouds, because the point of origin had to be obscured, and learning how to fly had solved that.

The 'shuttle' had really been a hot air balloon, or dirigible actually, and the hard part about moving it around had again been solved by what he'd learned about flight out of that book. Same with the supposed fighters. They didn't have to DO anything, only look impressive! One clone had been stationed inside the shuttle to create more clones to form the massive army that marched out, and another was outside, concealed in the clouds so it could use wind and puppetry techniques to move the shuttle and fighters, and there you go, one mysterious invasion force landing in a show of power.

So you had two 'ninja villages' showing up (most of whom were Naruto, with a few clones of his Angels thrown in) in ways calculated to panic everybody, taking the whole thing quite seriously, when really it was a very large prank.

Probably the largest prank ever pulled off in the Elemental Nations.

I I I

"Hey, you guys! The Hokage made Naruto a chunin! The resets may be over!"

Ino and the original Yugao looked at each other, caught arms deep in a half-disassembled but still living Sasuke by Ayame flashing through in an Ice Mirror teleport, leaning out of the surface just long enough to tell them the resets might be over before going on to warn the rest of the Clan.

The two girls looked down at the body between them.

The boy's chest cavity gaped open, and half his organs were out and laying on tables in different baths of medical fluids. Sasuke's mind was trapped in a Hell-Viewing illusion specially tailored to drive him insane, working on the Last Uchiha's weaknesses by having his ghostly relatives show up and tell him in minute detail why he sucked. While his brain was busy with that they'd been experimenting with the body, partly testing the effectiveness of various Life-Support jutsu for their medical bag of tricks, but also working out the bugs in even stranger experiments.

Vacation resets were the time for the really wild and wigged-out stuff, after all.

At the moment, they'd been Frankensteining Sasuke, with different parts going through their own separate genetic rewrites so they could see some of what occurred when different parts with different genetic codes got sewn together. Yugao had only just begun rearranging the face, having lifted up the skin on half of it to work on the underlying tissue, experimenting with new looks for part of their deep cover agent disguise program, while Ino was already halfway through the surgical and hormonal treatments to transform the Uchiha into a girl.

Sharing another look, they hurriedly began to reassemble him.

The village could be convinced to overlook a lot of things, but they loved the Uchiha so much the Clan had never once managed to talk their way out of killing him, in resets when they got caught.

Part of what made it so fun!

I I I

Something seemed wrong.

"Hey Vicky?"

"Yes, Naruto?" The Kyubi-in-human-form turned to her master.

Naruto was closely regarding the summons just finishing up the performance with the Beast Ninja. "I can't believe I never asked this before, but is there a summons contract for foxes? Those dog ninja with dog summons is just too cool a theme. We need to expand on it."

The Kyubi-in-human-form blinked at him, then smiled warmly. "Of course there is a fox contract. Here, I'll let you sign it right away."

"Hmm, might have to look into fish and birds, too," he mused. "Maybe come up with some way to work in monkey-ninja and toad-ninja. Those animal theme pairings of ninja clans and summons are just too cool."

His eyes seemed to go alight.

Vicky stiffened. "If you are going to go reproduce those ninja turtles you saw in that tape you summoned..." she threatened.

Naruto just grinned in reply.

"I'll tell your wives!" she warned, pointing a finger at him.

I I I

Tayuya was having a Great Day.

She couldn't wait to tell the Clan about it. For one thing, on the last reset testing to see if she couldn't figure out how the Flying Thunder God seals worked she'd somehow wound up in Demon Country, and since she'd found herself at a shrine anyway had figured 'why not?' and asked if any of the priestesses there knew how to deal with possession.

One did.

It had taken swearing herself in as a shrine maiden for a reset, but for the rest of that one she'd got taught how, and this morning right out of the tent slapping an ofuda on Orochimaru's head resulted in some black mist leaking out his nostrils and ears, before the body itself fell limply to the ground.

Tayuya watched, amused, as the former leader of Sound's body rapidly began going through a sort of decomposition. In seconds the False Face jutsu had fallen away of its own accord and the body had already lost its pale color and black hair in proportion as the black mist jetted out. She noted idly the host body was a redhead. Hmm, who would have guessed?

Scratch one Orochimaru, and now they had a more reliable way to defeat him. Heck, those ofuda were simply seals. She was sure they could set up an area where possession was impossible, just like that time they'd blocked out all teleport and summoning techniques from the Forest of Death.

And wouldn't that drive Orochimaru insane?

The rest of the Sound Four looked at the lone kunoichi in their midst like she was insane, which was hardly abnormal, but amusing in its way.

Tayuya cocked her head and smiled. "Sorry guys. I'm a deep cover agent, and one dead Kage deserves another." Then she clapped her hands together and bounced perkily on her toes. "So, anyone want to defect to Sand village?"

Behind her in the woods a white snake formed out of coalescing black mist, eyed Tayuya balefully from a distance, then fled.

I I I

Haku completed the last seal and laid the brush down delicately. Then she slapped her hand on the ground.

"Summoning no Jutsu!"

It was insanely dangerous to create a new summoning scroll, but what did she care? She'd already been dead, and would be again at the start of the next reset, and once more they'd bring her back again.

What was a little risk of life and limb in the face of that?

The young girl's face went all aglow as the marks on her scroll went alight in the proper order and with a puff of chakra a horse sized butterfly appeared in the air before her, awaiting her command.

Haku couldn't help but flick the tip of her foxy tail in delight. Being a part of Naruto-sama's clan would ensure she kept whatever memories she gained, and thus any successful experiments could be repeated as often as desired.

That made it both a joy and a delight to do them.

She didn't even tense up as an ice mirror formed out of the air to her right, as the only people who could do that anymore to her knowledge were her husband and clan sisters, so it did not register as a threat.

Ayame leaned out briefly to urgently shout, "Hey, Haku! The Hokage made Naruto a chunin! The resets may be over!"

The mirror vanished as quickly at it had formed and left behind Haku stiff with fright. Suddenly the ice maiden's heart was pounding loud as she stared down at the Butterfly scroll she'd created, considering the insane risk she'd just gone through to make it.

So much for doing one for rabbits next.

She delicately picked up the functioning Butterfly and Dragonfly scrolls and clutched them to her chest, waiting for her heartbeat to die down to normal.

I I I

"Everything I have ever taught you, you have betrayed."

Horribly bruised and battered from the beating he'd just received, and that he'd been too shocked to defend against, Kakashi watched in stunned horror as Sakumo Hatake, his father, crushed the plucked-out eye Obito had given him in one fist, liquid spilling out from between his fingers as he did it.

Shaking the ruined orb from his hand, Sakumo told his son, "You are lazy, bigoted, disrespectful of others, and a continual insult to those who work hard to succeed - an unforgivable insult as a hard working ninja is exactly the type I taught you to be, and the only ones worth anything. I cannot think of a worse example you could be setting for Konoha's youth. And it ends today."

Contemptuously stripping off his son's mask so the world could see him whimper, Sakumo leaned forward to stare into his son's remaining eye. "Whether you survive that lesson is up to you."

The killing intent came cold and fierce, and worse that Kakashi had never felt it from his own father before.

Sakumo reached backwards without a word and a pleased Tenten, standing behind the outraged parent, placed his reforged sword into his hand - the same one Kakashi had so carelessly broken.

Instantly as it met Sakumo's hand it went ablaze with white chakra.

The clones watching this on handy bleachers burst out into applause.

I I I

Part of being a vacation reset meant never having to clean up after yourself.

Danzo cracked open the lid of the coffin he'd been trapped in at last, spilling out the ash and sand and other ingredients that had been part of the failed Pure Resurrection technique they'd tried to use to reanimate Naruto's mother.

Stepping out of the mess, the ancient war-hawk was PISSED!

I I I

The nearest Naruto clone was easy to find - it was halfway through modifying the Hokage Tower into a giant phallus. Although how he'd managed to subvert the seals that protected the place, not even the ANBU he was dodging knew.

"Naruto, stop that at once!"

The grinning blond boy appeared before Tsunade, who'd called out to him (the Hokage's cries he'd ignored - the old man always wanted to stop him from vandalizing his place of business) hanging upside down on a double handful of ninja wires. "Hey there, Hot Stuff! Is it time for our orgy already?"

Tsunade turned pink for the first time in a LONG time, not able to resist a somewhat chagrined glance to the Hokage standing beside her. "No, Naruto, not that. In fact we may not do that today."

"But I'm already halfway through decorating!" The boy waved a hand at the tower, confused. "Do you know how hard it was to run all those pipes and find the right mix to turn the water white in the fountain?"

Seeing his current wives mortified, Naruto wondered why. This wasn't their first time doing this. Looking for reasons, he scanned the small crowd, eyes passing over the Third Hokage as no consequence (something that Hokage noted) to check out the embarrassed stances of Tsunade, currently the Kazekage, Anko, Kurenai, Hana, Yakumo and a Yugao clone.

That's when he caught it. They were all wearing Suna headbands.

Yugao explained, "We got caught, and accepted sole responsibility for killing half the civilian council and Sarutobi's teammates. As Konoha ninja, that's treason, and the only punishment is death."

Tsunade nodded. "However, as Suna ninja, that's merely a diplomatic incident. So as Kazekage, I claimed responsibility for sending them on that mission."

"Hmm," the husband shrugged, hanging upside down (which made it look more than a little weird). "That's never happened before."

"Ahem," The Hokage cleared his throat, only to get ignored like a squeaky piece of furniture. Naruto refocused on him only when all of his currently present wives stiffened and started giving off 'This is IMPORTANT!' vibes.

Seeing he finally had the boy's attention, Saruboti smiled and presented him with a rolled up scroll. "Congratulations, my boy. You are a chunin."

Naruto's reaction upon being presented with his certificate of promotion took the Hokage like a punch to the gut. Where he'd been expecting gleeful shouts and joyful capering about, the blond youth took it with a bored, "Che, Anko told me a long time ago I'd need to be at Kage strength before I'd make chunin rank in this town."

The Hokage's hopeful face sank down below his shoes as the newest chunin of Konoha wadded up the paper that was to most a cherished emblem and discarded it negligently with a casually toss over one shoulder. "Looks like she was right. So," he turned to the girls. "Where do we move?"

"Move? Naruto..." words failed the shocked old man.

The confident youngster gave him a dismissive, 'you're still here?' glance, before explaining (as it was the easiest way to get him to go away), "Listen, old man, there has never been a chunin exam where I haven't been forced to deal with two S-rank foes, at least: Orochimaru and Gaara, and fighting them never brought me promotion before - even though you'd think it would worth an automatic upgrade for a genin to seriously fight those two and live."

Sarutobi felt somewhat ashamed at the boy's words, because with anyone else it would be. But he could see how the civilian council...

Naruto drilled him with an unfriendly glance, as if sensing his thoughts. "Not even when you live was that worth the promotion it ought to be. Not even when I am right there visibly saving your life from Orochimaru's attack was that worth even the slightest recognition from you for the achievement."

Now Sarutobi felt doubly ashamed. He could only hope he'd become distracted by the aftermath. But promotions had to have been involved somewhere, and he had to admit if the council could play him well enough to not recognize the level of accomplishment Naruto talked about displaying... then he had to ask the very difficult and humiliating question of just how good were they at manipulating him? How much had they slipped by him in the past, and not only with regards to Naruto?

And the answer to that question was anything but pleasant. Because until now he'd have said he was entirely on top of the situation, when obviously he was anything but. And Sarutobi was enough of a ninja to recognize if he'd never noticed their manipulating him, then they'd played him very well indeed.

Naruto dismissed it all with a shrug. "There aren't enough S-rank ninja in the world for me to defeat in order to gain jonin rank in this place. I could defeat genocidal, immortal madmen by the dozen, then save every life in this village and not even come close. You holding my parentage secret for so long has ensured nothing blocked the hate they hold me in, and thus any promotion they can block, they will do so just to spite me; just like with Anko. You cave any time the civilian council puts you under the least pressure, so any theoretical protection you provide would be useless. So, if I want to move up in rank the only way is to go elsewhere. The only question is where."

Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, left that conversation a broken man.

He had never before realized just how much he'd relied upon Naruto's cheer, exuberance and limitless faith in their shared home village to get him through each day. Never realized, until one day it was gone, and the Hokage realized at last it had no firm basis to start with.

Naruto's faith in his village had all of the same emblems surrounding it as an abused spouse hoping that by loving her drunken husband more, he will stop beating her. Neither one carried any recommendations of the abuser, they were the desperate acts of a victim who doesn't know what else to do.

And he'd let it go on unchecked right under his nose.

Watching him go, Kurenai reminded, "Naruto, you do recall that being made a chunin, the resets are probably over, right? So vacation reset rules no longer apply, so it might not have been the best thing to be so totally honest with him."

Naruto went white, then looked sickly. "Ehehehe, oops?"

I I I

Author's Notes:

Yes, oops indeed, isn't it? 


	77. Chapter 77

The Groundhog Exam  
Chapter Seventy-Seven

by Lionheart

I I I

Sarutobi reached down into his secret desk drawer to retrieve a large bottle of high quality sake out of his stash, kept for celebrating especially good news. Normally such a thing would last him two months of sips. Honestly, he expected to go through the whole thing tonight, and possibly two more like it.

"Stop that!" Tsunade stormed into the room and slapped the bottle out of his hands, sending it to smash against the wall in a small explosion due to her strength. Leaning down into her teacher's face, she declared, "I ought to know better than anybody that doesn't help at all!"

Hands on the desk on either side of him she leaned into his face. "Crawling into a bottle to escape the past doesn't do anything to solve your problems."

"As I recall you telling me in a similar situation, Tsunade," Sarutobi replied in dry tones. "Not all the medicine in the world could fix your problems."

Now appearing kindly, the Kazekage sat on her teacher's desk. "Sensei, that is because I was looking to fix the wrong problems. It's wasn't my brother or fiance being gone that was the problem. It was the pain their absence caused me that shut me down. I wasn't looking at the real issue. Once I could forget how much it hurt I was fine - and let me tell you how shocked I was to figure that out. I knew no medicine ever devised could bring them back, and thought the pain would only ever go away when I joined them. Now I know how wrong I was. Ironically, I only ever learned how to bring them back once I'd stopped wanting to, but that's enough about my problems."

Adopting a smug smirk, the blonde Sannin tapped the top of a stack of paperwork sitting beside her on the desk. "Yours are simpler. You don't even need to bring back the dead. Just change some people's views. Now surely," she smirked, "that's not beyond the so called God of Shinobi'?"

She was trying to lighten the mood. When the Hokage scowled instead she brought her fist down with enough force to cause the contents of the desk to leap several inches into the air. "SENSEI! Think like a NINJA for a moment!" She shouted at him. "The problem here is NOT Naruto! It's not even that blind spot you had where you looked at the Konoha fanboy he was and never imagined he'd grow up to use those ninja skills he was supposedly being taught to look at his situation and realize he had no reason to be loyal to this pig-sty that was doing everything possible to prove they didn't want him or his loyalty! Now pretend for a second that you are a new Hokage, just getting saddled with someone else's mistake. Take the oh, I screwed up, I must suffer' out of it and look at the situation as it stands. What do you see?"

Sarutobi followed her directions, and soberly considered the problem. Within moments his face had cleared of its troubled expression.

A minute later teacher and student met eyes, and they both grinned.

I I I

The shopkeeper ran with all of his might.

Like many who had heard of the Rise of The Former Hokage's, he had been filled with joy, and rushed out to greet his old friend, eager to tell him all the news of what had passed in the intervening years, and also eager to tell him of how loyal he had stayed to the man who'd saved them all, a loyalty he'd proved daily by doing everything he could to torture the brat to blame for his demise. He'd even offer to share the fortune he'd gotten from overcharging him! But, of course, Arashi would turn him down. The man was generous like that.

Like countless other Konoha civilians, the shopkeeper ran to a meeting place, joining the crowds watching as Arashi Kazama, the Fourth Hokage, in the flesh, talked to the two Hokage's previous to Sarutobi before turning to address a sizable fraction of the Konoha population gathered around them.

And the first thing he did was hit them all with an illusion.

It was a memory technique, many of the ninja there could recognize it; and every eager face in that crowd, happy to have him back and so anxious to tell him of all they'd done in his name, found themselves transported back to that dreadful night of the Kyubi attack - but that was alright, it was from the Fourth Hokage's perspective and they knew who won in the end.

So they watched, anticipating their triumph, some few wincing at the faces of those since lost as they flashed passed. But the story was a new one to the village. It showed a man rolling up the complete the draft work on what was to be the new seal, shrug off the reports of his ANBU, and rush to the hospital, not to the trauma ward, but to the delivery department.

That was the first many of them learned their beloved Fourth had a wife. It had been kept a secret. They even saw she had delivered a beautiful baby boy and joy and gladness filled them all as the couple exchanged tender, heartfelt yet necessarily brief words confirming to all who witnessed their marriage and their pride in the birth of their son.

It was obvious the child had to be hidden, else they would have heard of him before now. Countless hearts within that crowd resolved that when the boy was revealed they'd treat him with all of the honor due his glorious family.

But instead of carrying the baby off, flashing to some remote location so the young child could be delivered into the hands of trusted servants, as most of the crowd expected (where the young heir would doubtless receive the best of all possible training, as due the only son of a Hokage) they saw instead their beloved young leader summon the boss toad and head to the front lines, where the fighting against the demon was at its worst.

They saw him explain to his infant son why it was necessary, and that he could not be prouder of the boy. They saw him tell Sarutobi that he wanted his son seen as the hero he was.

Then they watched in horrified realization as their beloved Fourth Hokage sacrificed himself and sealed the demon into his infant son and heir.

Worse, the illusion did not stop there. They saw, as if from beyond the grave, a town that hated and abused the boy at every opportunity. They saw their own faces as they cheated the child, ostracized him, told their children to hate and avoid him, beat him and treated the son of their beloved departed leader with all of the cruelty they could under the lax eyes of minders that were sympathetic to their cause, willing to allow anything that wouldn't end up with them on report from one of the few who cared anything for the lad.

They were devastated.

As the illusion ended Arashi Kazama glared hatefully at those who'd gathered to welcome him back, most of those who'd been among the worst offenders. In tones dripping with disgust, he told the assembled masses, "Every time you hurt my child, I regretted saving your life."

Then he turned away from them and vanished in his signature technique.

Sarutobi stepped forth out of the group of previous Hokages and his ANBU guards to take the stand, soberly condemning the crowd with his eyes. "I can personally verify the truth of everything the Fourth Hokage showed you this day. I did everything in my power to stop the hate, yet none of you would listen to me. The jutsu used to stop the demon attack required two, not one, to perform. And a requirement of the jutsu was that one of those be a baby not even hours old. Naruto is every bit as responsible for stopping the attack on you as his father was. Yet rather than respect their sacrifice which saved all of your lives, you showed nothing but contempt to Naruto personally, or to his father's dying wishes that he be seen as the hero I know him to be."

The current Hokage stared at the crowd a long moment, puffing on his pipe. "Now the secret is revealed it will spread, and all the Elemental Countries will know that Konoha is without honor."

While the audience gasped he took a long puff on his pipe, waiting for the right amount of dramatic tension. When he judged it proper, he said, "It is entirely within the power of our Daimyo to require that every head of house in Konoha, civilian as well as ninja, commit seppuku to purge this stain."

Cold, stark terror now gripped those watching, who'd never even imagined they could be punished for their actions towards the young boy.

Sarutobi masked his satisfaction over this reaction with a grave mask. "As the offense was so grievous I can think of no other way honor might be satisfied, in your place, I would prepare myself. Put your affairs in order. For I imagine the order is going to come soon, unless, by some miracle, there is another way presented for us to redeem ourselves. But I can think of none."

The Third Hokage turned and walked away from the now-horrified crowd with satisfaction burning deeply inside his breast.

It wouldn't be half an hour before every mind in Konoha would be feverishly devoting itself to imagining up some way to satisfy honor and make things up to the aggrieved Fourth Hokage and his son without every husband or clan head slicing open his belly and spilling his guts out.

Sadly, the magnitude of their crime was so big most of those would plot in vain.

I I I

Kakashi squatted behind some brush in the middle of a training ground, as far away from other people as he could get.

Normally he would be wandering through town, reading his porn.

It never struck him before, but that was deliberate. He was a jonin. He could easily have found all the privacy he'd wanted to. He could've sent clones out to go shopping or meet his team for him, leaving him to do all of the smutty things he'd wanted in the privacy of his own home. He had a nice place, or at least he did before his father came back and kicked him out of it, making bonfires out of his porn collection and hiring cleaning crews to remove the filth that had accumulated in the place during Kakashi's residency.

When your father is respected on a level with the Sannin he makes a lot of money, and unlike many ninja Sakumo was a family oriented man. He'd bought a nice place with that money, and Kakashi had inherited it. So all these years Kakashi could have been locked up in his spacious abode as much as he'd liked, getting all the jollies his body was physically capable of, and no one would have known any different.

Instead he'd gone out to read his porn in public.

It had never struck him before how much of that was a deliberate insult to the other people of his town. He'd done it mostly because he knew he'd been able to get away with it. Yes, I am reading porn in front of your kids and there is nothing you can do to stop me'.

That was less about porn and more about power.

As a powerful ninja, there were few who could have done anything to stop him, whatever he'd wanted to do, and of those few none had bothered. He'd been able to rub their faces in the fact that he could do anything he wanted.

Only now was he coming to realize that, and the reason he'd done it was equally obvious to anyone who cared to think about it. After the death of his team he'd felt helpless, powerless, and unable to do anything about it. So he'd done what he could to prove he was powerful. The rough part was he'd done it at the expense of the helpless villagers.

His father was right. You do not torment the helpless to overcome your own grief. That was reprehensible in so many ways.

Kakashi rubbed a hand over his now-bare face, then pulled it away with a jolt and winced. There, burned into his face with the blazing tip of the family blade burning with white chakra, was a seal that hurt him when covered. As this seal covered his whole face he'd never be able to wear a mask again.

That was deliberate on his father's part. The way he explained it, wearing a mask creates a distance between you and other people; that because they can't read your face as easily you aren't connected as closely. That was a big reason for why some ninja wear masks. Not being connected as closely to other people made it easier to hurt your targets on missions. It also creates a feeling of anonymity. Right or wrong it grants a feeling that you won't be held responsible for whatever your actions are because you won't be caught.

That was exactly the reason Kakashi had always worn a mask. And exactly why his father had forbidden him from doing it ever again, then gone ahead and made it impossible for his disobedient son to disobey him. In Sakumo's mind, his son needed to connect to other people again if he was going to have any chance of being a decent person again.

Of course, the jonin would have to overcome the minor obstacle of having the kanji for shame' carved so it took up his whole face. Even concealing it with a transformation hurt like nothing else. But, as his dad pointed out, nobody sent the Great Kakashi on infiltration missions anymore (mostly because he didn't like them, so had bombed the last couple on purpose).

Had he really become such a screw up?

As if having a seal in the shape of the word shame' over his face wasn't enough, there was another seal carved into the front of his pelvis, that if Kakashi ever got an erection again his balls would explode. Sakumo's grin had been grim as he'd explained that he'd put a counter seal on Kakashi's wife if the unlikely happened and he ever got married, so in her immediate presence there would be an exception, but it was vital the Copy Cat be weaned off his porn addiction and relate to real people again.

And, as a jonin, the body control to survive until then out to be well within his power. Right?

Sakumo was going to fix his son or break him, but he wasn't going to tolerate Kakashi living on as the failure he'd become.

Kakashi shivered as he squatted in a bush.

I I I

Blink. Blink.

A blink. In the end, that's all it took. Once it happened, the woman recognized it. That blink had occurred when she wanted it to. For the first time in an eternity she'd wanted to blink and it had happened. At that stunning thought she gasped, and the feeling of her own body drawing breath at her command proved her startling conclusion to be true.

Her own body was responding to her control again at last!

Countless hours she'd raged against her helpless state, done everything her brain could conjure up and more, railing against being a prisoner in her own mind, forced to watch her body do things at the Other's commands.

The red haired body sat up and stared around the empty clearing where she'd been abandoned. The Sound ninja had departed; probably for the best, as she was years out of practice using her skills to defend herself now.

Standing up was no trouble, though she was a little wobbly. Understandable, it had been a long time for her merely being a passenger. It was different in the driver's seat. So many of its reflexes now were not her own.

She raised her hands to look at them. Pink. Healthy flesh-tones, not the unnatural white of the Other. She felt her face. Round, not the thin and narrow cheekbones of the Other. Hands brushing down her sides confirmed the tasteless tan robes and garish purple rope tied in a bow. The ninja gear carried she knew intimately, all too well for her peace of mind, in fact. But her curves were now her own again.

Soon the explorations she could do like this were not enough and the woman took off to the nearest stream. She knew this territory well, having crossed it enough times, even though those most recent trips were as an observer.

Her reflection in the water proved what her hands had reported. The Other had gone, and taken its unnatural appearance with it, leaving her with her own looks. She was back to being herself, no longer a vessel for the Other.

The woman broke down crying in relief and gratitude on the spot.

Still, she was a ninja, soon even that had passed, and she leapt off through the woods, long red hair flying like a flag behind her, and soon arrived at the gates of Konoha.

The gate guards were now stiff and somewhat paranoid, and she actually had to force herself to suppress the automatic reactions of her body to either sneak by or slaughter them effortlessly, using the Other's skills imprinted through his long usurpation of her body.

"Papers!" One of the guards demanded, when she forced herself to approach normally and enter his line of sight.

The woman shook her head, still somewhat in a daze. How could she have forgotten? "I'm sorry. I have none."

Both guards tensed up. "Name and village?" the lead one demanded.

The redhead brushed a stray lock out of her face. "Kushina. Kushina Uzumaki, originally of Whirlpool, now of Konoha. I've only just escaped from imprisonment. Tell me, is the Hokage in? Tell him I need to see my son."

I I I

"That was unpleasant," Sarutobi shuddered, just coming out of a memory transfer technique where he'd witnessed, from Naruto's perspective, how his heritage had originally been revealed to Konoha - and the more or less total flop it was.

You don't get to be called the God of Shinobi without learning how to read people, and he could see his own face as his double in that memory read the reactions of Naruto to the announcement of his parentage. He had seen the conclusions he'd come to, even as his double came to them...

And none of them had been pretty.

The Hokage could see that he had underestimated just how much this town hated the boy, and also how deeply rooted that had gotten, because the memory made it clear not even that revelation made their opinions swing back to where he felt they ought to be, liking and respecting the boy at last.

Sarutobi had never felt the need to question the assumption he'd had that once the town knew the truth they would love the boy at last, until now, when he'd seen that it had not worked that way at all.

A sobering, and even disgusting revelation.

"Well, you were the one who'd insisted on seeing it," Tsunade reminded her teacher, both their kage hats laid aside for this discussion. And she was right, he had, desperate to know what it had been like for the boy to learn about his parentage.

It had not been the happy occasion he'd been hoping for. No, instead miserable had been more like it. They'd even revealed that sometime during the past intervening years the precious scrolls Naruto's family had left for him had been stolen out of the Fourth Hokage's home by parties unknown. The last ditch defenses on them must have functioned, destroying those scrolls, else those techniques would already have been in use by other ninja, but the pleasant image built up of Oh, when Naruto is old enough he will then be permitted to inherit his family legacy' had proven to be just another lie.

There was nothing this village could do to hurt the boy they hadn't done.

Seeing the downward spiral of his thoughts, Tsunade slapped him with some medical chakra. "C'mon, enough of that. You'll like this next technique much better."

The Hokage was laid out on a table in an empty room near his office, Tsunade standing over him, medical chakra surrounding her hands as she worked, and speaking conversationally as she did so. "This jutsu is yet another of those Wow! That used to be impossible!' techniques we've developed over the time loops. One of our former Sound ninja developed it out of research performed on a Bone Technique bloodline user."

Sarutobi groaned in contentment, feeling his fragile old bones becoming hard and strong again, as though in his youth. Yes. He liked this very much.

Tsunade snorted, amused over his reaction. "This next was produced by that young girl who is head of the Kurama clan. There's a long story there about how the Uchiha clan as part of their attempts to weaken their rivals and subvert the village sealed a minor demon into her to use her gifts against the village and her clan. We have the documents proving it out of the Uchiha's own secret archives. Anyway, she came up with this one. I think you'll like it."

Muscles writhed and swelled across Sarutobi's chest and limbs, shocking him to where he could only stare dumbfounded up at his student.

She could only smile in victory. "Yes, neat isn't it? Your physical levels were actually worse than any genin. It was only extreme experience compensating for your physical frailty that kept you any good as a ninja. Now you aren't back up to anywhere near your prime; but still, mid-chunin levels of muscle conditioning are worlds above where you were a second ago."

The Hokage was flexing and staring at his still-wrinkled but much stronger arms and hands. "Have you done this to me often?"

He was unprepared for Tsunade's snort. "No. The muscle development jutsu is brand new, and most of the time when we heal your bones the first thing you do is insist people like your old teammates and Danzo get the same."

The Hokage's face darkened. "Yes. I can see how that might discourage you." Even the most cursory inspection of the records proved those had been the chief ones manipulating him.

"Lie back down." She put a hand on his chest when he tried to sit up. "You've got organ damage and things still wrong with you. Some of that we can't fix. But the heart is just a muscle. I can do stuff with that. The lungs, however... Well, I can pull out some of the accumulated poison you've been smoking into them over the years, but nothing to reduce the scarring. They're just a bit too complicated to make mistakes on, and we haven't been rebuilding organs for very long, so you'll just have to bear with reduced capacity. Others, like the liver spots on your skin are caused by your liver having been overloaded with toxins to where it became damaged, and actually Naruto recently just tried applying a standard medical jutsu for treating poisoned wounds to the liver directly. It can't fix everything, but it will remove the overload, and the organ can then regenerate itself. You'll just have to give up drinking."

"Are you certain? Surely I can..." The Hokage opened his mouth to protest only to find his medic possessed of great strength and a fiery temper.

"Oh, no you don't!" she insisted. "No weaseling out of this one! If I can do it, you can do it! Besides, your liver and kidneys can no longer take the strain, if you want them to heal. And you can't expect your muscles to work well when half the nutrients they need to carry the load you put on them can't get to them because your bloodstream is busy shuffling about the drugs you insist on taking! The liver and kidneys can only remove that stuff so fast, and the more damaged they are the slower that rate is, and right now they are very damaged. So it's a choice: are you going to smoke and drink or be a ninja?"

Sarutobi stilled, knowing the subtext of that, in light of recent revelations especially with regards to Orochimaru's attempts to assassinate him, was: Do you want to live to see your grandson make genin?

And, in point of fact, he did. So that was pretty much it for his filthy habits.

At that moment the door to their private medical chamber came open.

"I ordered all normal appointments to be suspended!" The Hokage roared, outraged at his healing being interrupted. He hadn't felt this good in thirty years, and was not anxious to have feeling even better interrupted by some self-important counselor who'd been manipulating him for years anyway.

"Oh, believe me, this is anything but ordinary," Shizune gloated as she led a redhaired kunoichi into the small chamber.

I I I

Author's Notes:

It has not been my habit to do this, but I need to recommend a story. It's by Angel of Snapdragons and is called "A Month as Naruto Uzumaki." You can find a link in my favorites (and his A Drop of Poison is shaping up to be excellent, too).

I'd love to see both stories continued. Shall we ask him? 


End file.
